Three days later, Nishida informed us in the morning that he was going to fish for the local god. Around thirty people would be there to watch, as it seemed that he had told his fishermen friends about this.
"This is troublesome. Asuna... What should we do?"
"Hm~mmm..."
To tell the truth, we weren't all that happy about this. We had come here to hide from the gossipers and Asuna's fans, so we were a little hesitant about appearing before so many people.
"How about this?!"
Asuna gathered her hair and pushed it up. Then she covered her face up to her eyes with a huge scarf. She didn't stop there and pressed some buttons on her menu window to put on a plain overcoat.
"Y-Yeah. Pretty good. You look like a proper farmer's wife."
"...Is that, a compliment?"
"Of course. In my case, they're not going to recognize me as long as I don't equip battle gear."
Before the sun even rose, I walked out of the house with Asuna, who was carrying our picnic basket. She could have just called it out when we got there, but she insisted that it was part of the disguise.
Today was warm for an early winter day. After walking through the forest of huge pine trees for a while, we could finally see the sparkling water between the trunks. A lot of people had already gathered there. As I approached nervously, a familiar stout figure waved to us as he laughed.
"Wa-ha-ha, it's a relief that we have such great weather today!"
"Hello, Nishida oji-san."
Asuna and I nodded our heads. He told us that the assembly of people here from various age groups were all members of a fishing guild that Nishida ran. We greeted everyone nervously, but it seemed nobody recognized Asuna.
Putting that aside, Nishida oji-san was far more active than I imagined. He must have been a good team leader within his company. The atmosphere was already spirited, as the group had been holding a fishing competition before our arrival.
"Eh~ so, today's main event will finally be starting!"
Nishida loudly announced this as he walked towards us with a long fishing rod in his hand, and the spectators cheered in excitement. I looked at the fishing rod he was carrying, my eyes tracing down the pole without much thought before the item at its end surprised me.
It was a lizard, an abnormally large one at that. It was as long as an adult's forearm. Its poisonous-looking red and black skin shone as if to emphasize its freshness.
"Hiiiii—"
Asuna noticed it even later than I did, and her expression froze as she took several steps back from it. If this was the bait, then what we were trying to catch must be unbelievable.
But before I had any time to ask, Nishida turned towards the lake and raised his fishing rod. With a short shout, he swung it in an impressive form, and the huge lizard drew an arc in midair before falling into the water with a large splash.
Fishing required almost no waiting time within SAO. Once you put the bait in the water, either a fish took the bite within a few dozen seconds, or you lost the bait. We swallowed involuntarily as we watched as the line sank into the water.
After just a few moments, the fishing rod twitched several times. But Nishida didn't even move an inch.
"It's, it's here Nishida-san!"
"It's still too early!"
Behind Nishida's glasses, the two eyes that usually belonged to a good-natured grandfather were shining with light. Nishida continued to watch the end of the rod without moving as it twitched.
Then the rod jerked harder.
"Now!"
Nishida strained his small body backwards and pulled the rod using his whole body. I could tell the rope was really tight just by looking at it, which also gave off a twanging sound effect.
"It took the bait!! I'll entrust the rest to you!!"
I cautiously pulled the rod that Nishida had handed over, but it didn't even budge one bit. It felt as if the fish hook had caught onto something embedded into the ground. I looked back at Nishida, worried if the fish had really bitten, and then within the blink of an eye—
The rope started pulling into the water with a burst of power.
"Ahhh!"
I quickly dug my feet into the ground and pulled it up again. The strength-applied gauge quickly went past the normal mode.
"I-Is it okay to strain this?"
I asked Nishida as I worried about the durability of the fishing pole.
"It's of the highest quality! You can pull on it all you want!"
Nishida nodded, his face already red from excitement. I corrected my grip on the rod and then pulled with all my strength. The fishing rod bent around the middle and became a huge U.
As each player levels up, they can choose to raise either strength or dexterity. Axe-users such as Agil would opt for strength, while rapier-users like Asuna would focus on their dexterity. Although I was a normal sword user and raised both of them, my personal preferences prioritized dexterity somewhat more than strength.
But I seemed to be winning this tug of war, most probably because my level itself was so high. I slowly stepped backwards, steadily forcing the huge thing out of the water.
"Ah, I can see it!!"
Asuna leaned over the water and pointed to it. I was leaning backwards and further away from the lake so I couldn't check. The spectators got louder and rushed forward to look into the water, which quickly deepened as it left the shore. I couldn't suppress my curiosity and focused all of my strength to tug at the fishing rod.
"...?"
Suddenly, something startled all the spectators that had been leaning over the water. Each one of them took a few steps back.
"What's wrong...?"
Before I even finished talking, they all turned around and ran away. Even Asuna and Nishida ran past me from either side with white faces. I was about to look back towards them when— the weight lifted from my hands and I fell down on my backside.
Ah, did the rope snap!?
As I thought that, I threw the rod away and ran towards the lake. At that moment, the glittering water surface of the lake suddenly surged upwards.
"Eh—!?"
I froze on the spot with my eyes wide open, and at this moment I heard Asuna's faraway voice:
"Kirito-ku——n, it's dangerous——!!!"
When I turned around, I saw Asuna, Nishida, and everyone else had already gotten up the embankment that rose from the edge of the lake, which was quite far away from me. I could hear the water splashing loudly behind me as I finally began to understand the situation. Then, with a feeling of uneasiness, I turned back around.
The fish was standing.
To be more precise, the creature was like a Coelacanth [2], a cross between fish and reptiles, except this one leaned more towards the reptile side. It stood there on the grass with its six powerful legs and looked down upon me as water streamed off it like waterfalls.
I said "looked down" because this thing was at least two meters tall. Its mouth, which seemed like it could swallow a cow whole, was positioned just a bit higher than my head with a familiar looking lizard leg sticking out of it.
From either side of this ancient colossal fish's head, two basketball-sized eyes met with those of my own. A yellow cursor appeared automatically to mark it as a monster.
Nishida had told us that the local god of this lake was a monster in a different sense from those that appeared in the fields.
How was it different? This thing was a monster in every sense of the word.
I forced a smile and took a couple of steps backwards. Then I turned around and scrambled off. The huge fish behind me gave a thunderous roar and then started following me with steps that shook the ground.
I pushed my dexterity stats to the limit and ran as if I was flying. I reached Asuna within a few seconds and complained loudly:
"Th-Th-That was unfair! Running away by yourself!!"
"Uwa, thisisn'tthetimetobesayingthatKirito-kun!"
I turned around and saw the huge fish running towards us with an impressive speed despite its sheer size.
"Ooh, it's running on the ground... So it's a dipnoan[3]...?"
"Kirito-san, this isn't the time to be saying pointless things like that!! We should run away quickly!!"
This time it was Nishida who shouted in fear. The dozens of spectators were in a state of shock from the situation, and quite a few of them were sitting on the ground with blank expressions.
"Kirito-kun, did you bring your weapons?"
Asuna said as she brought her head right next to mine. Yeah, it would be pretty hard to get everybody ordered enough to escape in this sort of situation—
"Sorry, I didn't..."
"Oh well, I don't have any choice then..."
Asuna shook her head as she turned to face the huge fish that was nearing us. She quickly manipulated the menu with a sure hand.
As Nishida and the other spectators watched with surprise, Asuna took off her overcoat and scarf with her back to us. Her chestnut hair danced wildly in the wind as it reflected the sunlight.
Although she wore only a grass-colored long skirt and a shirt of hemp cloth, a rapier shone at the left side of her hip like a mirror. She drew it with her right hand, and the sword gave a clear ringing noise as she waited resolutely for the huge fish to come.
Nishida, who was standing beside me, finally got back to his senses and shook my arm while shouting:
"Kirito-san! Your, your wife is in danger!!"
"No, we can just let her handle this."
"What are you saying!? I-If that's what you're going to say, then I'll..."
He snatched a fishing rod from a nearby companion and prepared to rush to Asuna with a tragic expression on his face. I had to quickly stop this old fisherman.
The gigantic fish didn't slow down one bit. It opened its huge mouth, which was lined with countless sharp teeth, and threw its entire body at Asuna as if trying to swallow her whole. Asuna turned the left side of her body away from the fish while her right hand flew out with a silver-white light streaming behind it.
A blinding flash of light erupted from the fish's mouth with an explosive sound effect. The fish was thrown high into the air, but Asuna hadn't even moved from her spot.
Although the sheer size of the monster induced fear, I had guessed that its level couldn't be very high. There was no way that a monster from such a low floor, especially one from a fishing-related event, could be that strong. After all, SAO was a game that kept to the normal pattern of online games.
The fish fell onto the ground with a crash, its HP greatly reduced by Asuna's attack. Then, Asuna mercilessly launched into a chain of consecutive attacks worthy of her title «Flash».
Nishida and the other spectators watched wordlessly as Asuna activated one skill after another while she stepped gracefully as if dancing. Was it Asuna's beauty or her strength that mesmerized them? I thought that it was probably both.
As Asuna swung her sword with a presence that overwhelmed everything around her, she saw that her opponent's HP had gone into the red zone and jumped back to widen the distance between them. After landing, she went straight into a charge attack. She dashed towards the fish, leaving a trail of light behind her as if she was a comet. It was one of the highest level rapier skills: «Flashing Penetrator».
With a sound effect similar to a sonic boom, the comet penetrated the fish from its mouth to its tail. As Asuna skidded to a stop, the huge monster behind her fragmented into numerous bits of light and scattered. There was a loud smashing sound which created a huge ripple on the lake's surface.
Asuna sheathed her rapier with a *clink* and walked nonchalantly over to us. Nishida and the other fishermen were left with their mouths gaping wide open, unable to even move.
"Hey, good job."
"It's not fair, making me fight by myself. You're buying lunch next time."
"Our money is shared data now."
"Oh, right..."
As Asuna and I went on with our relaxed conversation, Nishida finally managed to blink and open his mouth.
"...Ah, that was surprising... Madam, you, you're really strong. This might be a bit rude, but how high is your level...?"
Asuna and I looked at each other. Staying on this topic for too long might be dangerous for us.
"Be-Before that, look, the fish dropped an item."
Asuna pressed a couple of things on the window and a silver fishing rod appeared in her hands. Since an event monster had dropped it, it was most likely an unsellable rare item.
"Oh, ooh, this is!?"
Nishida received the fishing rod with sparkling eyes. All the spectators became interested in this as well. Just as I thought that we had managed to safely avert this crisis...
"Are...Are you Asuna from the Knights of the Blood...?"
A young player took several steps closer to Asuna and stared intently at her face. Then his face brightened.
"Yeah, you are! I've even got a picture!!"
"Ah..."
Asuna forced a smile and took a few steps back. The spectators then doubled their excitement.
"It's, it's an honor! To be able to see Asuna-san fighting so close up... Oh yeah! Can, can you give me an autogra..."
The young man suddenly stopped talking and then shifted his gaze between Asuna and me a few times. He finally muttered with a surprised expression:
"Are...Are you two... married...?"
It was now my turn to force a smile. As both of us stood there with unnatural smiles plastered on, shouts of anguish rose up all around us. Only Nishida continued to blink without any idea of what was going on.
Our secret honeymoon ended like this after only two weeks. But maybe we should consider ourselves lucky to take part in such a fun event at the end.
That night, we received a message from Heathcliff, requesting us to take part in fighting the 75th floor boss.
The next morning.
As I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the ground, Asuna, who had finished getting ready, walked over to me while the iron soles of her boots clanked against the ground.
"Hey, you can't be like this forever."
"But it's only been two weeks."
I replied childishly and raised my head. But I couldn't deny that looking at Asuna in her white-red knight uniform for the first time in a while was very attractive.
Seeing as we had temporarily left the guild, we could decline the request. But the last line of the message, that "some people had already died," laid heavily on our minds.
"Well, we should at least go listen to what's going on. Come on, it's already time!"
As she tapped me on the back, I finally stood up with reluctance and opened the equipment screen. Since we weren't part of the guild right now, I put on my familiar black leather coat and a minimalistic set of armor, then slung my two swords onto my back with the scabbards crossing each other. The heavy weight on my back felt like they were complaining about being left in the inventory for so long. With a quick movement, I drew them slightly and then sheathed them again; a high and clear metallic sound rang through the room.
"Yeah. This appearance suits you best."
Asuna smiled and hung onto my right arm. I looked back and bade farewell to our new home, which we were going to be away from for a while.
"...Let's get this over with quickly and then come back."
"Yeah!"
We looked at each other and nodded. Then we opened the door and stepped outside into the cold winter air.
At the gate plaza of the 22nd floor, we found Nishida waiting for us with a fishing rod in his hand. We had told only him the time when we were going to leave.
"Could we talk for a bit?"
I nodded to Nishida's request, and the three of us sat down next to each other on a bench in the plaza. Nishida started talking slowly as he stared up towards the upper floors.
"To tell the truth... until today, stories about how people were fighting to clear the game on the upper floors sounded like they came from another world... Perhaps I had already given up on the thought of leaving this place."
Asuna and I listened to him silently.
"I think you already know this, but the IT industry progresses almost daily. I had started this career when I was young, so I was able to keep up with the industry back then. But now I had been out of the field for about two years, I figured it would be impossible for me to catch up now. Since I don't know whether I could return to my old job or not, or if I would be treated as a hindrance and simply tossed away, I thought that it would be better for me to keep fishing here—
He stopped talking and formed a smile on his old, wrinkled face. I didn't know what to say. I suppose I couldn't even imagine all the things he lost when he became imprisoned in SAO.
"I also—"
Asuna suddenly started talking.
"Until half a year ago, I also thought about those sorts of things and cried by myself every night. As each day passed here, it felt as if everything: my friends, my family, going to college, everything related to the real world was being ruined. I always dreamed of the other world when I slept... I thought that all I could do was to get stronger quickly, to clear this game faster, and the only way to do so was to fanatically train my weapon skills."
I looked at Asuna in surprise. Although I never paid much attention to others before... but I never felt anything like this from her during all our interactions. Well, this wouldn't be the first time that I had guessed someone's personality wrong...
Asuna caught my gaze and smiled briefly before continuing:
"But on a day about half a year ago, after I had just teleported to the city on the front-lines, I saw someone taking a nap on the grass of the plaza. He looked as if he was at a pretty high level, so I got angry and said, 'If you have time to kill here, go into the dungeon and try to clear some more of it...!'"
Then she covered her mouth with her hand and laughed.
"Then that person unexpectedly replied, 'It's the best season in Aincrad, and the weather setting is really good too. It would be a shame to go into the dungeon on a day like this.' Then he gestured to the space next to him and said, 'Why don't you take a nap as well?' He was so rude."
Asuna stopped smiling; her eyes became distant before she continued:
"But what he said surprised me. I realized that 'this person was actually living properly within this world.' He didn't mind losing days in the real world and instead focused on experiencing each day within this world. I discovered that there were actually people like this, so I sent away the other guild members and tried laying down next to him. Because the wind felt so good... just the right warmth for people, I fell asleep. I didn't have any nightmares that time. It was probably the first time I had such a good sleep since coming to this world. By the time I woke up, it was already in the afternoon, and that person was looking at me impatiently. That person was him..."
As she finished, Asuna tightly grasped my hand. I felt extremely embarrassed. I did sort of remember something like that, but...
"Sorry, Asuna... I didn't mean anything that deep by it; I just wanted to take a nap..."
"I knew that even if you didn't tell me!"
Asuna pouted, then she turned back towards Nishida with a smiling face before continuing:
"From that day on... I went to sleep thinking of him, and as a result the nightmares went away. I found out where his hometown was and would set aside some time to go see him every once in a while... Then I began to look forward to the coming of each day... When I realized that I was in love, I was so happy and swore to treasure this emotion. That was the first time when I thought that coming to this world was a great thing..."
Asuna lowered her head, rubbing her eyes with her gloved hands, and then took a deep breath.
"Kirito-kun is the meaning behind the two years of my life spent here. He is also the proof that I'm alive and the reason for looking forward to tomorrow. I had put on the Nerve Gear and come to this world in order to meet him. Nishida oji-san... It might not be my place to say this, but I think you've definitely achieved something within this world. There is no doubt that this is a virtual world, that everything we see and touch is an imitation created from data. But to us, our hearts do exist within this reality. If that's true, then everything we're experiencing here should also be true."
Nishida blinked continuously and nodded several times. His eyes were moist behind his glasses. I was also trying my best to hold back my tears.
It was me, I thought. I was the one who was saved when I couldn't find the reason for being alive, whether when I was in the real world or after I came to this one.
"...Yes. Yes, you're right..."
Nishida looked up at the sky again and spoke.
"What I have heard here is also a priceless experience. Having caught a five meter fish is also one... It seems that my life here hasn't been meaningless. It was not meaningless at all."
Nishida nodded once and then stood up.
"Ah, it seems that I've taken up too much of your time. I firmly believe that if people like you are fighting to free us, then we should all be able to return to the real world soon... Although there's nothing that I can do to help, I could at least encourage you and cheer you on."
Nishida held our hands and shook them.
"We'll come back. Please keep us company when we do."
As I promised with my index finger, Nishida nodded with a huge smile as tears streamed down his face.
We firmly shook hands with Nishida and then walked over to the teleport gate. As we entered the space that shimmered like an illusion, Asuna and I looked at each other and then opened our mouths at the same time:
"Teleport— Grandum!"
The blue light that started to cover our vision erased the image of Nishida as he kept waving at us.