Chapter 349 - 2: Another Cheat Acquired

Chapter 349: Chapter 2: Another Cheat Acquired

Most buildings in SAO had been configured as indestructible. No matter how much Cardinal had strengthened Yimi back then to maintain balance, an ordinary attack would at most stir up a cloud of dust.

Other worlds had no such property. Even so, a prison built to contain Spirits was not made of material that could be destroyed easily.

The noisy thing that had been driving the cat crazy finally fell silent. Buried under the rubble with only her head exposed, Ellen glared at the little cat padding calmly out of the ruins.

Seen from high above, the many high-rise buildings that had once stood there had collapsed. In their place was a cat-paw print nearly a kilometer across.

The woman who had been bound to the chair needed a moment to recover from the unexpected turn of events. In the vast base, she seemed to be the only person still capable of moving.

She removed the blindfold that blocked her vision. As her eyes gradually refocused, they followed the reflected light in that direction. The "hero" who had saved her showed no intention of caring about her at all. The cat hopped onto a slab of rubble and began searching for a route out.

There was not the slightest fluctuation of spirit power in the air.

The Spirit corresponding to the Second Sephira summoned her Angel, Rasiel, the embodiment of omniscience. Its pages recorded only the optimal route by which she could escape. They offered no explanation whatsoever for the situation before her—or for the cat.

Honjo Nia dismissed her Angel and followed Yimi.

She had stopped trusting humans long ago anyway.

...

A great deal of time had passed, but Yimi still remembered Origami’s scent. Unfortunately, she had probably teleported much too far away. At this distance, she could not smell Origami at all.

"Meow!"

Yimi turned her head and called toward the person behind her.

A strange woman had been following her the whole time.

She had short gray hair and blue-green eyes, looked no older than twenty, and walked with unsteady steps.

Yimi hurriedly quickened her pace.

Nia quickened hers as well.

The scene felt oddly familiar. The difference was that Nia had taken only a few running steps before she tripped over flat ground with a smack.

"Meow?"

Yimi padded back in tiny steps and nudged Nia’s head with her muzzle.

"Grrrgle~" It was the sound of an empty stomach.

It definitely had not come from Yimi. Before teleporting to this world, she had been celebrating her birthday and had eaten plenty of cake.

Had this woman been following her because she was hungry enough to eat cat meat?

Yimi pressed a forepaw against Nia’s head and gave her a push.

"Hungry..."

Being hungry was a serious matter.

Yimi sat down and rummaged through her inventory. Most of the food the Clearers had offered her in the previous world had been eaten on the spot, while what remained had been saved for Mama and Grandma.

Only two things could be used.

Yimi pulled out a box of biscuits and some milk. After opening them for Nia, she gently pushed them toward her.

Still lying on the ground, Nia hurriedly grabbed a biscuit and stuffed it into her mouth. The ensuing crack reminded Yimi why she had left that biscuit uneaten. The biscuit was famous as a specialty of one floor precisely because it was so hard.

The milk was perfectly ordinary milk. It had been forgotten in a corner because it was too ordinary.

"Meow-meow."

Yimi raised a paw to stop Nia, who was already too weak from hunger and would only waste more energy trying to chew. Then she took out a small bowl.

As Nia waited patiently, though visibly puzzled, Yimi put the biscuits in the bowl and poured in the milk. After letting them soften for a while, she clasped a spoon in both paws, crushed the biscuits, and mixed them into the milk.

"Meow." Yimi pushed her new creation toward Nia.

The desperately hungry Honjo Nia did not eat at once. She looked down at the nameless mixture on the ground, then at her own bent arms supporting her prone body.

She fell into deep thought.

Yimi did not concern herself with what Nia was thinking. The instant she created that bowl of milk-soaked biscuits, another change occurred within her body.

Within the Aincrad entry under her Noble Phantasms, the Cardinal System registered another enhancement recipe for the player. To preserve balance, it enhanced Yimi yet again, because the effects of most stat-boosting recipes could be stacked.

* * *

History had not changed. Shiori knelt in Origami’s empty apartment.

I’m useless. I can’t do anything.

"Did you fail?"

Kurumi’s voice sounded faintly subdued. She reached toward the crying Shiori, then drew her hand back.

She had been very fond of that child. The First Spirit was utterly monstrous.

Without speaking to comfort the woman who had once made her heart flutter, Tokisaki Kurumi slowly sank into the shadows. Amid her grief, her usual smile once again curled at the corners of her lips.

During that month, Shiori had constantly worried about Origami and Yimi, but the effort to win over the Spirits had not stopped.

Natsumi had been in a poor mood because of Yimi’s disappearance. She was closer to Yoshino than she was to Shiori. Beyond that, Hoshimiya Mukuro, who had returned to outer space, had also been successfully sealed.

Thus, among the Spirits Shiori had encountered, the only one who had not opened up to Shiori was Kurumi herself, whom she had met even earlier.

Like Origami, Kurumi hated the First Spirit. Besides her fondness for Yimi and the possibility that the child could become an ally, that hatred was likely another reason she had agreed to help Shiori.

That woman alone could never be forgiven.

Decades ago, Takamiya Mio had described Spirits as righteous companions akin to magical girls. Then she gave Kurumi the Third Sephira Crystal and asked her to defeat monsters.

At the time, Mio had naturally said nothing about Sephira Crystals being objects that could only be made compatible through repeated human sacrifices before a host could contain them. Those who failed to adapt and became sacrifices were, of course, transformed into the "monsters" Kurumi was sent to kill.

The so-called monster hunts had never been about protecting world peace. Kurumi had merely been helping Takamiya Mio retrieve Sephira Crystals being refined inside human bodies!

Tokisaki Kurumi discovered the truth after defeating one such monster. She had intended to invite Mio to visit a friend’s home, but when she returned to the scene, she found Mio crouching beside the corpse of Kurumi’s closest friend.

Yes. Takamiya Mio had fused the Sephira Crystal with Kurumi’s best friend, then made Kurumi kill her.

In the school office, Murasame Reine flipped through the lesson plan in her hands, then lowered her gaze to one hand.

The injury she had suffered a month ago still had not fully healed. An indescribable sensation remained inside her body even now.

Little Shiori had also been acting strangely lately. Ever since encountering the Spirit-transformed Tobiichi Origami, she seemed to be hiding something from the support team.

Shiori had not been wearing her earpiece at the time. Apparently, she had accidentally spotted Origami, who had been missing for a long while. Just as she tried to follow, Origami triggered a Spacequake to conceal something.

Most likely, it had been that mysterious toad.

In fact, the toad had appeared once before, a month earlier, at the very moment Origami first summoned her Astral Dress. Although Fraxinus had only just finished a major battle, its crew had dutifully reviewed the Spacequake readings detected by civilian systems afterward.

Unfortunately, nearly every camera in the area had been destroyed by the spatial compression from Yimi’s Love Train. The available angles failed to capture Origami as a Spirit, but they did record the demon, which had made no particular effort to hide itself.

That led to the following scene aboard Fraxinus: "It seems this toad is the Spirit involved this time. Then we’ll proceed as usual. The next time it appears, Shiori, make it fall for you, then seal it with a kiss..."

Shiori: "How am I supposed to do that?!"

The Spacequake alarm sounded again, pulling Reine from her memories. Students throughout the school, long accustomed to the procedure, filed toward the shelters in orderly lines. As part of the support team for the dating operation, Reine should have returned to Fraxinus to prepare.

But Reine did not move. The situation was far too obvious.

This Spacequake was centered on the school, and the immense surge of spirit power was clearly aimed at her.