Sword Art Online - Volume 21 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The chapter begins at 9:05 PM, 27 September. I.e. the moment that the leniency period expires. At that moment, Kirito, Asuna, Alice, and Leafa were in the log house's living room. At that instant, several things happened. First, a purple-tinged-with-red aurora appeared in the sky. Next came a voice that sounded both innocent like that of a young girl, and as prudent as that of a woman. Kirito also noted that the voice sounded familiar somehow, as if he had heard it before.

[The seeds have sprouted, the branches and leaves have spread, forming a ring gate. Those of you summoned to the land of dying hopes, protect your single life to the end. To the first one to endure the many hardships, survive multiple predicaments, and arrive at the land indicated by the aurora, I/we (?) shall grant thee everything]

The moment the voice from the sky disappeared, the aurora vanished as well. Just as Kirito attempted to contemplate on the meaning of those words, he heard screams behind him. Before Kirito could finish his question on what happened... he sighed. Because the girls hadn't listened to his advice to take off their equipment. And so all three of them were now on the floor with their hands, futilely trying to stand up.

At that point, Alice ordered Kirito to step outside. Having expected this, Kirito just nodded and stepped out to the porch. During that time, Kirito investigated the damage to the house caused by the bear. Although the house was supposed to last at least until ~6 AM by their previous calculations, now it was only ~4 AM. So, only 7 hours left. But at least they managed to find quite a bit of iron ore at the bear's cave. Apparently, the bear used that iron to make those metal needles on its chest.

With an improvised stone axe, they had gathered as much of the ore as they could, though they wouldn't know if that were enough until they processed it. So, the first step to their iron age was to create a furnace. Of course, Kirito complained about wanting clothes, as always. But he had to prioritise getting iron while they still had Leafa's sword. And they had apparently faced some megabat during their adventure. Just as Kirito resolved to get some clothes ASAP, the ladies were done and so Leafa called him back. There, he found the girls standing in a line... and all of them were wearing the same kind of one-piece dress, to his surprise.

Surprised, Kirito asked how the girls had acquired the dresses. Thus, with a 70% proud, 30% guilty expression, Asuna explained that they had crafted cloths from the Amane grass fibres, and then made clothes out of them. As Kirito stood there dumbfounded, Alice added with a smile that they learnt from his personal experience that their ALO equipment would eventually become unusable. So, they made preparations in advance. So, Kirito asked if there was something for him too... but before he could finish his question, Leafa apologised that they had run out of «Amane Grass Coarse Cloths» by the time they finished crafting the three dresses, though she promised they would make something for him too.

Just as Kirito was about to change the topic, Leafa reminded him that he forgot something important: complimenting the ladies on their new outfits, of course! Meanwhile, Asuna wondered if the game had some screenshot function. Since there wasn't any screenshot button, Kirito assumed that there could be an item for taking pictures, like in SAO. The one most disappointed by the lack of a way to take a picture... was apparently Alice.

After a moment, she closed her window and changed the topic to the voice from before. Alice apparently found the voice's manner of speech to be similar to Quinella's. At that point, Kirito realised why the voice sounded familiar to him. Of course, Quinella's already dead, so Kirito concluded that it couldn't actually be her. Though, this did make him think of his "best partner" sacrificing his life to put an end to Quinella, which made him feel a sharp pain in his chest all of a sudden. After taking a deep breath and burying the ache at the bottom of his memories, Kirito returned to the conversation. He proposed dealing with the voice later and instead focus on the house repairs for now.

Kirito began setting up a plan: he would go collect some stones at the riverbed, while the girls would get some firewood from the logs. But before he could finish, he was suddenly assaulted by a intense sense of thirst and couldn't finish speaking. When he looked at his status bars, he noticed that the TP (thirst point) bar was already down by half, while the SP (starve point) bar was down by about 20%. Took him long enough to realise that the game wouldn't go easy on him... Meanwhile, the girls had also felt the same sensation and were thus pressing down their throats and coughing. Kirito concluded that the dry throat sensation came way too quickly compared to the real world. And while it wouldn't have a negative effect on their body, he theorised that if the bar reached 0, their HP would start decreasing. So, change of plans: everyone to the river.

The girls nodded to the proposal unanimously. Kirito, Asuna, and Alice equipped with stone knives; Leafa equipped with a stone axe that they had made for their ore gathering. The noise of the running water only amplified their thirst, so Kirito's plan to make cups before drinking the water gave way to his urge to drink right away and he instead just used his hands to get some water. The four of them continued drinking until they filled their TP bar. 9:15 PM at that point. Kirito planned to confirm how much time they had before thirst became a problem again by refraining from drinking for a while (to see how fast the bar goes down). Meanwhile, the four of them realised that they had caused their chests to become wet due to their drinking, and thus shared an embarrassed grin. Then they began talking about crafting cups and the best way to do so, until Kirito realised that it would be a pain to have to go to the river each time they needed a drink. So, they needed to make a container that they could fill with water, and a bottle to have on hand.

At that point, Alice proposed digging up a well (based on her UW experience). But Kirito thought that a polygon world wouldn't allow changing the landscape like that. Just as he was about to propose to focus on a furnace for now, he heard his stomach grumbling... and suddenly felt a strong sense of hunger. His SP bar was apparently nearly halfway down by now. The girls pressed down on their stomachs, thinking that their stomachs were grumbling too. Leafa even began shouting to distract the others from the grumbling. When Kirito remarked about the silliness of the action by saying that the grumbling was no big deal, Leafa responded that a guy dressed like a caveman wasn't one to talk. As Kirito made his excuse the the girls didn't make any clothes for him, they heard another mysterious sound. This time, it didn't come from their stomachs; rather, it came from the river - a big splash.

When Alice speculated that the sound came from a fish, Leafa immediately decided to catch it. But Kirito stopped her, saying that they weren't sure it actually was a fish yet. As their chatter continued, another splash came... from closer than before. Kirito ordered Alice and Asuna to retreat, while dragging Leafa by the nape with him. He took a torch into his left hand, and his knife into his right. Alice brought another stick and asked Kirito to share his fire.

They continued staring into the water, but they couldn't see through it and no other sound came after several seconds of waiting. The moment Kirito thought that they were safe, a platypus head (around 30 wide x 60 long cm) appeared from the water. Despite quacking like a duck, which didn't really make it look dangerous, the platypus had numerous sharp fangs. Kirito noticed that the platypus didn't have a cursor either and thus speculated the cursor only appears when you actually engage the opponent in combat. So, it was impossible to say if an animal is hostile or harmless through this system. Also, the monster wasn't afraid of their torches either. Suddenly, the platypus, which had only shown its head and bill so far, revealed the rest of its body. But rather than fur, the platypus had scales.

After several moments of standing on all fours, the platypus suddenly stood up. Its hind legs were apparently bigger than its fore legs. And it had a long tail. At that moment, Kirito shouted that it looked like a dinosaur. So, now he's calling it a platysaur. Although it still quacked like a duck, the fangs clearly showed that it was a carnivore. As Kirito prepared for an attack, a reddish lump flew in from the side... right into the platysaur's bill. The platysaur began moving its bill energetically. Having gulped the lump down in an instant, the platysaur opened its bill again. When Kirito turned his gaze to the side, he saw that Asuna was throwing another lump at the monster. Kirito finally realised that lump was actually the Thorn-Bearing Bear's meat.

Having finished the second lump of meat, the platysaur began moving towards Asuna. Quacking and flapping its short arms along the way. It was begging for more, it seems. Doubting that the platysaur would ever be satisfied, as it was twice the size of a large dog (although smaller than the bear), Kirito was about to propose throwing the meat a bit further next time to buy time to escape. But before he could propose that plan, Asuna raised her right hand and whispered that there was a ring metre in front of the platysaur. The metre was already 60% full. Kirito realised what it was - a taming metre.

Before Kirito could complain that taming the monster would present its own problems, Asuna took out a third lump of meat from her storage. This time, she didn't throw it. Instead, she held it in her hand and slowly approached the monster. The platysaur backed away a bit, but its appetite won over - it stood still, moving its head towards Asuna. After sniffing the girl's hand with its nostrils, he took the meat and began chewing. At that point, Asuna glanced at Kirito, at her wit's end. Apparently the metre was full now, but nothing happened, so she asked him what she should do now.

As Kirito considered what to do, Alice shared her own experience from UW: after giving meat to wild dragons to calm them down, she'd use some reins on them. At that moment, Kirito suddenly opened his storage. He seemed to see something strange at the centre of the ring, but decided to ignore it for now and instead took out an Amane grass rope, which he threw to Asuna and ordered her to tie it around the platysaur's neck. Hearing Kirito's command, Asuna gave an expression that showed she was seized by fear. But since she's the only one who sees the metre and would thus be the only one who could attempt to tame the monster, she slowly approached the platysaur.

As she began tying the rope around the platysaur while it chewed on the meat, Asuna noticed that the metre was now shaking. Despite Leafa's encouragement, Asuna was so nervous that the end of the rope slipped from her fingers. Meanwhile, the platysaur finished eating and noticed the rope on its neck. Just as it quacked, Asuna finished tying the rope. At that moment, the platysaur's body flashed, just like when they produced materials. A ring-shaped HP bar and a spindle cursor appeared. The latter was green. Meanwhile, the platysaur rubbed its bill at Asuna's face. Apparently, the taming was a success.

At that moment, Leafa shouted a congrats to Asuna as she began scratching the monster's scales. The platysaur apparently enjoyed it. Kirito wondered what the monster was called, so he looked at the cursor. Beneath the HP bar, he saw the following string: [Nagahashi oo-agame] (long-billed (?) great agame) in katakana. Even Kirito didn't understand what "agame" meant. Kirito attempted to call for Yui, but then he recalled that they were still separated. Then he figured he'd start up a browser... but he realised that it wouldn't work in-game. So, he figured he'd just look it up the next time he logged out... if he still remembered to do so.

So, now that they avoided a battle with the monster, Kirito proposed getting started on carrying the stones. But Alice suggested getting a meal first. At that moment, Kirito's stomach reminded him of its presence with another grumble. After satisfying their empty stomachs and SP bars with cooked bear meat (Kirito was pleasantly surprised that this also recovered (some of?) his HP), the group gathered the stones by the river. Other materials they needed were clay and dry grass.

Kirito wondered where they could get clay, but when he picked up some of the white-ish soil at the riverbank and tapped on it, he got a window that said it was [Coarse grey clay]. Having finished gathering the materials, the group returned to the log house. There, Kirito opened his menu. And at that moment, he once again noticed that the inside of the 8 icon ring was no longer empty. What Kirito saw on his menu was the string 【００００：０１：０３：２４】, where the last number increased at a pace of 1 per second. Thus, it was obvious that it's a timer (day:hour:minutes:seconds).

The girls had noticed the timer too (while making their clothes). While Kirito was doing the math for when the counter began, Alice confidently stated that the timer began counting from the moment the mysterious voice said "give everything" (at 9:05). Kirito wondered what's the point of the timer, while Leafa complained why it couldn't display RL time instead. Since they couldn't make sense of it right now, Kirito proposed prioritising their work for now.

So, he tapped on his skill icon and selected the stone furnace option from his Stonemasonry skill. At that moment, a transparent, light purple furnace appeared in his view, along with another Tips window: [Use your hands to adjust the location of the construction ghost in building mode. Pinch-in to bring it closer, pinch-out to move it away; grip tightly to execute construction. Building mode cannot be canceled.] Basically, draw your fingers together or apart to adjust the distance from the builder for the construction. Moving your hand lets you move the construction to the sides. Form a fist to finalise your choice. And, apparently, the girls can see the "ghost" building too. So, Kirito speculated that the system doesn't allow canceling construction to prevent harassment/abuse with the feature, as other people could see the to-be-constructed building. Kirito wanted to play around with it for awhile, but refrained, fearing that he'd get slapped on the back again.

While they had quite a bit of land around the log house, they needed to plan out where they'd put stuff so that the area didn't end up cramped. So, consulting Asuna, they decided to place the furnace a bit to the west from the house. A white stone furnace appeared exactly where indicated (Kirito leveling up his Stonemasonry skill in the process), causing the ground to shake. The combustion chamber looked kinda like an oven. But Kirito wasn't sure how to use it. At that moment, Asuna's new pet platysaur decided to stuff its face inside to take a sniff. At that point, Kirito remembered that it didn't have a name and thus asked Asuna what name she's going to give it. Asuna said that she's not really good at naming, earning a remark from Kirito that Asuna uses her real name for her avatar... to which she responded that Kirito's is barely one step away from using his real name too. Anyway, Asuna decided to come up with a name eventually. In the meantime, she enjoyed scratching its lower jaw when it came back to her. Kirito speculated that Asuna would look for some meaningful name, instead of just coming up with a random one.

In the meantime, Kirito approached the furnace and found out that tapping on it brought out a management window. All he had to do was move the ingredients to it via the window or directly. So, as a Tips window instructed him, he prepared several sets of iron ore from the bear cave, threw in some firewood into the combustion chamber, and used Alice's stone to ignite a fire. More firewood would need to be added to maintain an adequate temperature in the furnace. As Kirito continued adding more firewood, the metal ore melted and flowed into a rectangle mold. Once it was full, it flashed, disappeared, and once again became full of molten iron. Kirito also got a [Smelting Skill acquired] message.

After about 3 minutes, the fire automatically went out, so Kirito opened the management window one again, finding 4 «Crude Pig Iron Ingots» in the finished products field. Kirito materialised one of them, confirming that they were now cold. After which, he shouted, "The age of iron has come!". The girls weren't all that impressed and just clapped 2-3 times, while the platysaur came to sniff the ingot, before giving a mocking quack.

It took a little over 30 minutes + a hundred and several tens of pieces of firewood to melt all the iron ore. While the firewood wasn't a problem, as they had enough to spare, they weren't used to crafting taking so long in SAO or ALO. While Kirito continued throwing firewood into the furnace, Asuna and the other girls had gone out to the river for more clay. To craft the iron items needed for repairs, Kirito needed to get an anvil and a blacksmith hammer. Kirito began to fear that you'd need an anvil to make an anvil, but the Tips window revealed that a casting mold could be used for that. And this could be crafted with the Stonemasonry skill, using stone, clay, wood, and sand.

With enough materials, Kirito used his skill to craft the casting mold, which he placed next to the furnace. He then used the mold to craft a «Crude Anvil» with some of his ingots + firewood for heat. He also acquired a Casting skill in the process. Now all he needed was a blacksmith hammer, which could also be crafted with Casting. But at that moment, Asuna asked him to take a break from iron work... and craft a «Biscuit Kiln» for pottery instead. "People who study math as a way to take a break from studying English sure are different", Kirito thought as he once again opened his Stonemasonry skill. Crafting a biscuit kiln required quite a bit of materials, but Asuna and the girls had already brought them over from the river. Stuffing his storage with the materials, Kirito constructed the kiln near the log house, as per Asuna's request. It basically looked like a large dog house. Asuna leveled up her Pottery skill while crafting plates, bowls, and cups.

Meanwhile, Kirito returned to his land of ironware. At that point, he checked on his status bars: HP&MP full, TP down by 40%, SP by 20%. He last drank water at 9:15, while now it was 11:15. So, TP decreases at a pace of 10% per 30 min (and SP at half that pace). While thinking that this pace was lax compared to other survival games he's played, Kirito theorised that the pace depended on activity and environment. Meanwhile, he checked on his menu, seeing that the time was 【００００：０２：１０：４５】.

After looking at the timer, Kirito checked his status. UR doesn't have numerical stats like STR or INT. Instead, it had Abilities. While Skills are "techniques that the player builds up", Abilities are "gifted talents". Simply put, Skills are for crafting, Abilities are for combat, it seems. Kirito then pressed a button to examine the details of his Abilities. This opened a new window with four icons displayed in the middle of the screen in a + shape. The top icon was «Strength» (剛力, gouriki, lit. Herculean strength), the right one was «Toughness» (頑強, gankyou), bottom one - «Intelligence» (才知, saichi), and left one - «Agility» (俊敏, shunbin).

Additionally, each icon had 2 lines extending out from it, leading to new icons. For example, «Strength» led to «Bone Shattering» (骨砕き, honekudaki) and «Protection» (堅守, kenshu); meanwhile, «Toughness» led to «Endurance» (忍耐, nintai) and «Poison Resistance» (耐毒, taidoku). Taking on one of these Abilities allowed going for the next Ability in line. Basically, works like a skill tree or something. Also, each ability apparently has 10 ranks. Since Kirito reached level 13 with his bear kill, he now had 12 Ability points stocked up. Though, there's no respec button, so Kirito was conflicted on how he should spend his points. And he thought how easy SAO made it by only giving him a choice between STR and AGI. Anyway, since he's in a four member party, he figured they should think up what role each of them would play and specialise their Abilities accordingly.

In ALO, Kirito was an attacker specialising in physical attacks, Alice was a tank focusing on defence, Leafa was a magic swordswoman, and Asuna was a healer who could also take up a sword (ehm, rapier) when needed. So, Kirito considered specialising in the Strength tree, though the «Toughness» tree also seemed appealing if he wanted to focus on survival. But he figured he should also take up some simple spells so that his MP wouldn't just go to waste. However, he also considered the possibility that the girls might want to take up a different role than in ALO. Since he learnt that the secret to getting along with girls.... was to discuss things with them, he decided not to pick his build on his own, and thus closed the window.

At that point, Kirito realised that he had forgotten what he was actually supposed to do next. It took him a moment to recall that he was supposed to be crafting a blacksmith hammer. With his casting equipment, he crafted a «Crude Iron Hammer Head» out of his ingots, then by attaching a wooden rod to it, he made it into a «Crude Blacksmith Metal Hammer», thus completing his preparations. Then he went to his anvil. Apparently, unlike SAO, you didn't need to heat the ingots before using them for crafting. So, he chose «Thin Iron Plates» and began using his hammer on an ingot. [Blacksmith Skill Acquired].

But Kirito focused on the fact that the activity was much louder than anticipated. He thus realised that the bear was probably drawn in by the noise of Leafa's log slicing before. The girls apparently had the same idea, looking at Kirito with unease. For a moment, Kirito thought that they could just use the log burial plan again if another bear came up, but then he grew concerned that if UR was equipped with the Cardinal System, it could have taken countermeasures against such a tactic. So Kirito decided to find rocks at the river in case said countermeasure only applied to logs. Before he left, Asuna gave him two pots to get some water while he's at it (their TP meter was at half atm). After getting the water, he stuffed the remainder of his storage with rocks.

Meanwhile, the girls crafted 4 cups, 5 bowls, and 6 plates. Kirito took out his water-filled pots and poured some water into the cups (and a bowl for the platysaur). They then began chatting about water. Alice wondered if there's a Sacred Art spell to create water. The problem is - they didn't now how to get magic skills. Alice's solution - learn through usage like all the other skills. As she said that, she thrust her right hand at Kirito's nose, causing him to bend back reflexively, which earned a chuckle from Alice.

Leafa: "Kirito-kun is such a scaredy-cat."
Kirito (thinking): You just don't know how scary Integrity Knight Alice can be!

Anyway, since they had spare clay, Kirito asked the girls to continue crafting pots. The girls would be able to craft large water jugs if they leveled their Pottery skill. Meanwhile, Kirito decided to return to crafting plates and nails. Using a round log slice as a chair, Kirito began hammering away. After 10 strikes, the ingot flashed and transformed into 10 thin plates. He needed 216, so that's 22 ingots (assuming all attempts were successful). Taking into account the nails as well, Kirito calculated that he should have just barely enough ingots.

While hammering, Kirito thought that this activity was much more fun than smelting. Thus, he thought that if he were to become a crafter in the game, he'd like to be a blacksmith, perhaps starting out as Lisbeth's apprentice. Lost in thought, Kirito finished crafting 220 iron plates. Kirito tried lifting all of them together, but the whole bundle together was too heavy for him. After taking out half the rocks in his storage, he was able to lift the plates and began walking to the house to store them.

Meanwhile, the girls were still working on the pottery, intending to unlock the ability to craft large water jugs. He wondered if it wouldn't be more effective for just one of them to unlock the ability, but he figured that the girls were just enjoying making tableware. Kirito arrived at the porch and put the plates down on the floor to open the door. It was nearly midnight, but he didn't feel sleepy, as, at the bottom of his heart, he was enjoying himself in the game. Specifically, finding their way around the world on their own.

If the log house hadn't crashed, he thought that he could have decided to explore the world, rather than setting up a base. Like on his first day in SAO when he rushed out of the Town of Beginnings. Just then, he realised that bears weren't the only thing that the noise could have drawn... "...Who's there!", shouted Alice.

Kirito turned around and saw several torches closing in from the south-western road that led to the river. The party was led by a guy wearing brown armour that looked like leather armour. Since no cursors showed up, he couldn't tell if the people were players, NPCs, or monsters. Despite Alice's shout, the party did not stop. But the guy in the lead (a long sword at his waist) raised his right hand, seemingly to show they weren't hostile. Kirito rushed over, while making sure that he still had his knife at his back. He then shouted at the group to stop.

They totaled 8 people. And all had quite decent equipment, like leather armour and scale armour. This earned admiration from Kirito, seeing as they had nothing but grass dresses and underpants on their side. Meanwhile, the visitors snickered when they saw Kirito. -1 friendship points with Kirito. The leather armoured guy in the lead confirmed that they were players. Raising his arms again, the guy asked Kirito's group to let them rest for awhile, revealing that despite their 5 hours of travelling, Kirito's group was the first band of players they had encountered.

When Kirito asked how they managed to form a party then, he responded to the question with a question, "Didn't you appear from there too?", not making it clear what "There" refers to. So Kirito explained they crashed down along with their house. The leather armour guy gave a dubious expression, but a small, cloth-wearing guy pointed at the crumbling log house, speculating they fell down from Aincrad. A large, scale-armoured guy doubted if that were possible. Kirito guessed that the three guys were the leaders. The small guy had a dagger at his waist, the large guy had a two-handed hammer on his back. Neither looked all that high-grade, but still far more powerful than Kirito and co's knives and stone axe. The dagger guy told the scale armour guy that there was plenty of wreckage scattered around the area with Aincrad, but the land there was hard, so if something fell into the sand or water, it could have survived the crash with less damage.

Asuna picked up on that talk and exclaimed that the guys were likely from ALO, thus she wanted to know if they saw where Aincrad had crashed. The guys had seen Aincrad, but from far away. As Asuna continued to assault the dagger guy with her series of questions, the leather armour guy stopped the dagger guy from continuing, saying that map data was valuable. Alice seemingly wanted to rebuke about the guys being cheapskates, but Leafa stopped her. Meanwhile, Kirito stepped forward and agreed to trade for the map data, asking what they wanted in exchange.

After consulting with his team, the leather armour guy asked for food and a place to spend the night. So, Kirito went back to the girls to talk about the offer, asking Asuna if they had enough bear meat left over. Asuna responded that they had some left over, but among those 8 guys, their own party, and Agah-chan, their supplies would run out after one meal. Kirito asked what if they used the meat to make soup or something, rather than just eating it by itself. Asuna responded that she could make 2 portions out of it, but she couldn't tell how well that would taste without salt or spice. Then Kirito asked if she didn't mind letting those guys stay over for the night. Asuna frowned for a moment, but then nodded that she didn't mind, seeing as it was only for one night. Then she asked the other girls if they were okay with the deal.

The girls (and even the platysaur) were okay with it, so Kirito returned to the men again, saying that they could offer enough food to replenish their SP bar to full, as well as a place to sleep, though they didn't have beds, nor could he guarantee the food's taste. The leader responded that just getting a place to stay without fear of getting assaulted by monsters or NPCs would be enough, seeing as it was very risky to log out in this world.

When Kirito asked what he had in mind with that, the guy explained that ever since that world message, avatars no longer disappeared upon log out, meaning that they would be exposed to danger during that time. So, the guys had come here looking for a safe place to sleep. When Kirito exclaimed that who'd want to play the game if they died in such a stupid way, the guys added a bonus piece of intel that wasn't part of the deal: UR was, in a sense, a recreation of SAO. He explained that the timer showed how long they survived... and that when one of their friends was killed by an NPC, he could no longer log in.