Chapter 346 - 47: Beat Him Up Again

Chapter 346: Chapter 47: Beat Him Up Again

Though the process had taken a few twists and turns, the sight of the two little girls tumbling around in a noisy scuffle made Kyouko feel they were disturbing her work. She regretted the moment of impulse that had led her to give Yimi a device—and then buy another one for Yui.

She would just treat it as an offering to a shrine.

At the dining table, Yui swung her short legs, which could not reach the floor, looking delighted. "Thank you, Grandma."

"..."

"ALO? No. You can’t play..."

Asuna trailed off and glanced at Yimi.

Did this count as playing a game inside a game? Come to think of it, SAO’s sixth floor had even contained an extremely crude puzzle arcade machine.

Yimi did not regard their reality as a game at all. That, at least, reassured Asuna.

Kirito seemed to have accepted it even more easily than she had, though his little sister had spent two days in a state of utter confusion over who she was and where she was.

"The government plans to set aside the campus left vacant after two schools merge for SAO victims, but I’ve investigated it. The teachers there are completely inadequate."

After spanking Asuna, she and her daughter gave each other a day to cool down. Only then did Kyouko finally raise the subject Asuna least wanted to hear.

"You’ve already lost almost two years. Once your health has recovered, I’ll ask someone to arrange a direct transfer to a high school in the neighboring city. Before that, there is a gathering you need to attend through your father’s connections. There will be young people around your age there for you to meet..."

Asuna listened with her head lowered and her hands beneath the table, though even that posture was normally enough to earn her a lecture.

She had thought surviving a death game would have made her grow, yet in the face of her mother’s authority, she still found herself unable to speak.

Asuna slowly lifted her head. From the corner of her eye, she saw Yimi and Yui taking the small, elegant bites she had taught them.

At that moment, courage rose in her from nowhere. "No."

"What did you say?"

"I know what you mean by ’meet.’ I’ve already told you I have a boyfriend. He’ll be at that school too, and so will all the friends I know."

"Someone you met in that game you had to fight your way out of..."

"Mom, I’m also a child who fought her way out of that killing game." Asuna looked at her sadly. "Shouldn’t I be the one who decides whom I like?"

Yui seemed to understand at least part of what was happening. She looked timidly at Kyouko. "Grandma, are you trying to make Papa and Mama get divorced?"

"..."

Kyouko’s face twitched every time she heard that form of address, and Yui’s question made it sound as though she were standing in the way of her daughter’s happiness...

"I’m full." Kyouko, who was usually the strictest person at the table about mealtime rules, was the first to leave.

Perhaps she needed time to calm down herself.

Yuuki Shouzou waved a hand. "Asuna, invite Kirito over for dinner sometime."

That said, the Sugou Nobuyuki affair had already demonstrated how poor his judgment of character could be.

"Oh, right—ALO. Papa, Sugou Nobuyuki was the one who trapped me there before." Only then did Asuna remember to report him.

...

After logging into ALO again, Yimi, who had never encountered anything like it before, found the game rather entertaining.

"What even is a Diego? I’ve never heard of it. We tame flying dragons through the natural gifts of the Cait Sith."

"It’s probably something from a cartoon. When I was little, I thought magical girls were real too." The cat girl patted Alicia on the back to calm her down.

Alicia clasped her hands behind her head again and looked at Yimi with one eye open. "Forget it. Killing you once did make me feel a lot better."

Yui, who had also chosen the Cait Sith when logging in with Yimi: "..."

For the moment, Yui decided not to be angry with Yimi. She pointed into the sky and asked, "Does Oberon live on the World Tree?"

Places accessible only with administrator privileges were usually located somewhere no one had ever reached, after all.

"That’s what the rumors say, but I don’t think ordinary flight can get you up there. Maybe you could do it by challenging the final quest, but no one has succeeded yet. We don’t plan to try for the time being. The price of death is too high."

Yui turned toward Yimi. "Shall we go take a look?"

The police had naturally been contacted in the outside world, but given Sugou Nobuyuki’s circumstances and Kayaba Akihiko’s still-unbroken technology, there was probably no way to rescue the three hundred people anytime soon.

Among the profile pictures in the online media’s list of those three hundred victims, Yimi could even see the older man who had once played hide-and-seek with her.

"Let’s go."

Yimi did not understand things like data, so she figured it should work and pulled a pile of Teleport Crystals from one corner of her inventory.

Perhaps because ALO’s framework had been lazily copied from Kayaba Akihiko’s work by Sugou Nobuyuki to save money, the Teleport Crystals, which sent her to random destinations in reality, could be used for targeted teleportation here.

Yimi took Yui and teleported away.

Alicia lowered the hands behind her head.

Holy shit?

* * *

Sugou Nobuyuki was in a truly miserable state. In the real world, his name was already infamous, and he was facing lawsuits funded by money he himself had handed out. Worst of all, the AIDS he had contracted was effectively a death sentence.

With treatment in a sterile room, he might otherwise have had years left, but in his present condition he was all but certain to die. The disease had been discovered only when he was examined after nearly every bone in his body had been shattered. The fact that he was still alive was already a miracle.

He was an abject coward. Even a shallow cut could make him scream, so there was no chance he could accept a death sentence.

Yet however timid he was, this situation left him no choice but to make one desperate attempt: imitate Kayaba Akihiko and try uploading his consciousness as data.

He believed it was possible. After all, he still had three hundred people trapped here for memory experiments!

"What the hell are you good for?!"

With an appearance unlike his real one, Sugou Nobuyuki wore a crown and long golden hair as the Fairy King. His face twisted viciously as he berated two creatures that looked like crosses between slugs and slimes, even kicking them.

"Boss, that woman didn’t log out of the game. Her signal was cut from outside."

"Right. Someone may have removed her helmet out there. She’s probably already come to harm." Sugou Nobuyuki kicked them again.

He could still obtain a Medicuboid meant for end-of-life care, and inside this world he could not feel the pain of reality.

For all his possessiveness toward Yuuki Asuna, at this point he would almost prefer her dead. If she escaped alive and told the police everything, he was completely finished.

The memory research was not mature yet, but he could not afford to wait any longer...

As he thought, light flashed. A tall woman dressed like a primitive tribeswoman and a little Cait Sith girl appeared at the top of the World Tree, an area accessible only to administrators.

Sugou Nobuyuki froze for an instant, then immediately cast gravity magic on them. "Who are you?"

"Diego!"

Yimi, completely unaffected, gasped in shock and put a hand on Yui’s shoulder.

A moment later, under Sugou Nobuyuki’s baffled stare, the pressure transferred onto him instead.

Even when a kitty was only trying to play a game, Diego had chased her here. That bad cat had lied and said Diego did not exist, but the cat people in this game had clearly surrendered to him!

Kill!

The World appeared before Sugou Nobuyuki, and a familiar impact traveled from his face into his brain.

What kind of bug was this? He had set pain suppression to level ten!

"Muda muda muda, muda!"

"Blegh!" Sugou Nobuyuki flew backward. Two consecutive bursts of incomprehensible pain brought him close to collapse.

"Aaagh! Why?!"

What was happening? It hurt so much!

"Boss!" The two slugs stared in shock.

Boss?

Yimi turned a hostile glare on Diego’s two lackeys.

"Muda!"

"Splat—" They burst into pulp.

Yui instinctively stepped back, then remembered she and Yimi were on the same side. Awkwardly pointing at them, she demanded, "Where is Oberon?"

"Quite obviously, you just killed him." A familiar voice came from behind them.

It was Kayaba Akihiko, speaking to them through the NerveGear devices of the three hundred people still trapped here. Sugou Nobuyuki’s theft of his framework made that easy to accomplish.

He looked at The World in confusion, then at Yui. "Did you truly succeed in logging out of the game?"

Yimi might still be explained away as an ordinary player from the outside world, but Yui was unquestionably a program. Now both of them had entered ALO through player accounts.

He had originally expected Kirito to arrive.

This surprise might be even greater.

Kayaba Akihiko extended a hand, and the Seed belonging to SAO materialized in front of his chest.