Mystic Knight Online: All The World's Made Strange
Chapter 11: Setting the Field
February 8, 2025 - Alfheim, Arun East Gate
Asuna landed and turned to see Kirito doing the same. She had sent Yui and Strea a message that she was going to be leaving Terun after having proven that yes, she was learning the magic system by managing to cast the three required spells that all Undines were expected to know before going out on their own.
The basic healing spell, both the single and multiple target variants, the Ice Spear for combat, and the Aqua Bind for crowd control. The spells that covered the three main uses of magic for Undines in the forms of healing, attack, and support. She didn't need to demonstrate her melee competence, not after she knocked some heads together after some decided to haze her for using the same name she did in SAO.
As if her looking very close to how she did in SAO shouldn't have clued them in. So she was a little softer in her looks, her hair and eyes were blue, and so on, but she wasn't that different in appearance. But some had decided to give her some trouble until she set them straight in the sparring ring.
Though the one called Sumeragi gave her a very good fight. He was almost able to keep up with her speed, and had a solid defense despite being slower than her.
"Well, we're here," Kirito said. "Yui and Strea have an inn with attached tavern that they have been staying at in the Central district." He glanced to something only he could see. "And I just got a message from Yui."
Asuna watched as he brought it up and read it. "What's it about?" She asked.
Closing the message, Kirito looked at her. "It's just Yui informing me that Harry, Silica and Lux are now in Arun," he said. "They also brought someone with them, Lux's mom. I think training her was what held them up."
Asuna blinked. "Wait, Lux's mom plays this game?" She asked.
Kirito shrugged. "I think she said something along those lines when we last met," he said. "Something about showing her mom the nice parts of VR."
Asuna thought about it before nodding. She couldn't put everyone's mothers into the same category as hers, after all. Kyouko Yuuki was a cold woman at the best of times. One who tended to see many things, like Asuna's going into ALO, as distractions to what she considered to be of real importance.
Asuna couldn't say that the woman was entirely wrong, either.
Needless to say, the continued disagreement between her and her mother on some things was something that Asuna was resigned to. Granted, they had reached a compromise in the matter, but she knew that it was precisely that, a compromise.
Bah, don't think of that, she thought to herself as she followed Kirito into the city and looked around. Arun was certainly a beautiful city in its own right, having been built around the World Tree, Yggdrasil. She could also see it rising on several artificial terraces that had a more organic look to them, being made to seemingly blend in with Yggdrasil, but a close look showed them to still be stone.
"This place must look beautiful at night," Asuna said to Kirito.
"It does look nice," Kirito said with a nod. "It's lit up almost as brightly as a modern city is with all the lights. Crystalights, fairy lights, you name it, they're used to light the place up."
Asuna nodded. She could easily imagine it. A city brightly lit, yet with a softer light than would be seen in the real world. One where someone could walk around, browse, or relax as they wanted. Just like many of the larger towns in SAO, she thought before shaking her head in amusement at it.
She then heard a rumbling and turned, noticing several others doing the same, to look at an embarrassed Kirito. She raised her eyebrow at him as he sheepishly put his hand behind his head in embarrassment. "When did you last eat and how long have you been online?" She asked. "I know that rumble. It's your 'I haven't eaten all day, please feed me' rumble."
Kirito gave her a sheepish look and she simply sighed. "Don't bother answering, I can guess," she said. "You left for Terun earlier today and forgot to eat before you logged in, so you probably haven't eaten since this morning. In game, either. So your avatar and body are in total sympathy, screaming hunger... and you ace ignoring them."
That would be just like him, too. If it wasn't for the rest of them breaking regularly for lunch in SAO, he probably would have continued on without realizing that he forgot to eat.
The next time they met, she would ask his sister if he tended to do that in the real world. It wouldn't surprise her one bit.
She spied a small place up the street they were walking and off to the right. The tables in front of it and the players sitting at a few eating and enjoying a few drinks made its purpose obvious. And with Kirito's stomach rumbling again, much to his embarrassment and her amusement, she knew where their next stop was. "Well, considering that the beast is hungry," she said in an amused tone. "Why don't we feed it before it tries to eat you from inside out? There's a place up the street, so let's go. And when you log off, you're going to eat a proper meal."
"I can grab some onigiri-" Kirito began before falling silent when she gave him a look.
"A. Proper. Meal. Kirito." She said, emphasizing each word and using the formal tone she often used when having to ride herd on him and the others.
"But shouldn't we meet up with the others first?" Kirito asked before yelping as she grabbed his arm and began to walk to the place she spotted.
"They can wait a little longer," she said, dragging him with her. "Or they can use their Friends Lists and find us."
Kirito simply sighed and let her drag him to the restaurant.
##
Silica felt Harry's nudge and looked up from the map that displayed Asuna and Kirito's location. They were close, so it wasn't like she would need it for much longer. "You see them?" She asked.
Harry smirked and pointed. Following his finger, she spied an Undine and Spriggan sitting at a table and having a meal. Nothing odd, given that she had seen several couples from various ALO races since arriving in Arun, but she didn't see it at first. But as she looked, she started noticing some things. Their faces were slightly different, as hers, Harry's and Lux's were slightly different, but everything else...
"So," she mused just loud enough for her dear Harry to hear, "'Not a date'?"
"Asuna will deny it first," Harry noted.
"And Kirito will go along if we call them on it," Silica agreed.
"... that's not going to stop us, is it?" Harry asked.
"It didn't stop them, and everyone else when we were the ones denying it."
"True," Harry agreed. "Well, let's go then."
##
"Oh, no," Asuna muttered. "Kirito... do not look, but... someone's coming."
Kirito to his credit did not turn. "It's either Lux or Rain or Harry or Silica... or some mixture thereof."
"I- it's got to be Harry and Silica," Asuna allowed. He could practically hear the bones in her back clank as she straightened it.
It was a risk, and part of him was declaring he was an idiot. But part of him always did around her. He reached out and placed his hand on hers. Just firmly enough so she couldn't jerk away without an 'undignified' show of force.
"We teased them," he noted as gently as he could.
"The situation," Asuna began. "It's- not... we should be..."
"This is not Tokyo," Kirito noted. "A different setting, different rules. You're their friend, they mean well. And... we did tease them."
Asuna sighed, her eyes darting to the side. "We're not... officially anything."
"Neither were they, for a while." He squeezed her hand, once, quickly, as Harry and Silica came closer. "If I'm not going to be official with someone..." He began with the statement that the two of them had once mused on using when it was clear that Harry and Silica would tease them about their apparent relationship before SAO ended.
Asuna took a breath. "That doesn't mean unofficially," she finished. Kirito smiled as her posture relaxed slightly as her initial panic subsided. This wasn't SAO, where nearly anyone who had been paying any attention to the who's who of the Assault Team knew who they were. This was ALO, where they were relative unknowns. And it wasn't the real world, so there should be no worry about this getting back to her parents.
His adoptive parents didn't mind, and his adoptive mother had a lot of fun teasing him about any relationship he had with Asuna. Sugu just shook her head and said that Asuna was probably going to have to make the first move given how he was around people.
Before he could muse any further, he heard Pina's chirped cry as the feathered dragon swooped down and alighted on the table near his plate, giving him her best puppy dog eyes look.
"Bad Pina, you know better than that!" He heard Silica scold.
"She saw food and she knew it was Kirito," Harry chimed in with the amusement in his voice clear. "She recognized us all when you came with Lady Alicia to Swilvane, so why wouldn't she recognize him and Asuna?"
"Harry, it's the fact that I taught her better," Silica said. "And if everyone didn't keep spoiling her, she would behave when there's food around."
"You spoil her as well, you know," Harry noted and then came into Kirito's field of view. "You know, we went looking for you when it was clear to Yui that you were running late. So we decided to come and find you and we have. And what did we find? The two of you were running late because you decided to go on a date."
"It's not a date, Harry" Asuna said.
"So you say," Harry responded in an unconvinced tone of voice that was obviously fake. "But you and Kirito are sitting outside, at a restaurant, and eating lunch. If it looks like a date, then someone who doesn't know you two would think it's a date."
"Good thing we know you two," Kirito responded. "And yes, we do know that both of you are going to tease us about this being totally not a date."
"Of course we will," Silica said. "And it's not like you two haven't gone on a date before anyway, or was that little outing the two of you went on after that tournament something else? You two did come back a little later than expected, after all." She gave them both a sly look. "Was it… oh, my. How scandalous!"
"What are you thinking, dear?" Harry asked. The curious tone in his voice would sound genuine to anyone who didn't know him.
"Silica," Asuna said. "I do not know what you are thinking, but it is not what ever salacious activity you, perhaps, may be implying."
Kirito winced at the formality of the words and tone Asuna used. They called those times when she did it her going into her "Princess Mode". While she had learned to use that aspect of herself to good effect within SAO, he knew it to be the defense mechanism she used so that she could initially cope with being trapped in a deadly situation. Her formality, her ability to use Keigo, the very politeness that the Japanese turned into an art form, as both weapon and armor- it served her well when she was in a position of leadership, but he would always remember it for how she initially used it in an attempt to keep everything and everyone at a distance while she struggled to cope with being stuck in SAO.
"So formal, Asuna,'" Silica said.
"What you were implying, or perhaps I should say, the way you were implying it, might have been a bit much, dear," Harry noted. "Teasing's fine, but there are limits, and going past those is something Argo would do, not us."
"That's because that trolling kitsune doesn't respect things like limits and boundaries, but point taken," Silica said.
Kirito saw Asuna blink in response to that and he wouldn't be surprised if his own confusion at that statement was shown on his face as well. Argo, a kitsune? And now that I think about that, it makes far too much sense, he thought. Her tendency towards mischief was almost as well-known as her ability to ferret out any information.
And it's not like they could discount the possibility, given what they knew about the world now. And who would have thought that the world would suddenly become bigger than we thought it was while we were still in SAO with its distinct boundaries?
"Wait, Argo is a…" Asuna began before trailing off as Harry shot Silica, who had the grace to look sheepish, a look. This wasn't the Furinkan District of Nerima, where certain rules were a little looser. This was ALO, where they had no idea if such being overheard would be taken as something within the game or not.
"No proof of it right now, but you have to admit, it would make sense," Harry said.
Kirito nodded in response to that and idly wondered what she was doing right now.
Kyoto, Undisclosed Location
Mizore blinked as she saw Takeru Shiba walk onto her family's home grounds before he stopped just inside the wards. It wasn't often that the current head of the Shiba Clan visited, mostly because he rarely had cause to do so. Wonder what brings him down here, she thought as she watched her mother make her way to him.
"Lord Shiba," the older kitsune greeted, her tails slowly waving in the air.
"Lady Yasaka," he responded, giving her a respectful bow. "I apologize for any inconvenience my presence causes."
"It is no inconvenience," she replied. "I asked for you to come here for our discussion. It could have been done over the phone, but I always have preferred to do meetings face to face when practical."
And it's not like he would refuse an invitation by you, Mizore thought. Her mother was a Kyuubi no Kitsune, a nine-tailed fox who has been alive for over eight centuries. Only a fool would refuse such an invitation and risk giving offense unless they had a very good reason.
"Mizore," came her mother's voice. "Go inside and tell Ayumi to prepare refreshments and bring them to my office. After that, come by there. What we will be discussing involves you."
"Gotcha mom," Mizore replied, trying to keep her curiosity from showing. What does Lord Shiba's presence have to do with me? She thought as she made her way to where the kijo that served as the family's chief of staff had her office. If she wasn't there, then she would be close by, probably already headed to the kitchens to make sure that the refreshments were being made.
She always seemed to know what was needed even before it was needed.
And the fact that the family had a kijo as the head of the household servants says a lot at just how powerful it was. It took a lot to get a kijo to focus her hatred and grudges into something constructive rather than destructive. Perhaps the service was a requirement for some boon granted to Ayumi to aid her in her quest for revenge. Mizore didn't know the details and she wasn't foolish enough to ask.
"Lady Mizore, how may I be of assistance?" Ayumi asked as soon as she reached the kijo's office.
"My mother would like for refreshments to be prepared for her, a guest and myself, and then brought to her office, Ayumi," Mizore said politely. Those who knew her in SAO would probably boggle at that, but she did have manners and used them. Especially with her fellow Youkai. At nineteen years old, she was very young for a Kitsune.
"Very well, my lady," came the reply. "It will be done shortly."
Mizore nodded and made her way to her mother's office.
##
"Thank you, Lord Shiba, for coming here at my request," Sachiko said as she sat down at the low table that served as her desk.
"It was no bother, Lady Yasaka," Takeru said easily as he sat down. "It gave me an excuse to not have to go to the Ministry of Shugenja for one of the more asinine functions that Minister Okuda keeps trying to get me involved in."
"You should at least show up to a few of those functions, Lord Shiba," Sachiko chided. "While your clan is not beholden to the Ministry, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't maintain a positive relationship with it."
Takeru nodded. "I am aware of that, My Lady," he responded. "And I would be more inclined towards such if it wasn't for Minister Okuda's constant calls on me for matters that are outside of the Clan's remit. We're demon hunters, and we have some law enforcement powers but we are not all powerful or have the final say in many supernatural matters."
"Indeed," Sachiko said and looked at the shoji as Mizore came in, shortly followed by Ayumi. Both were bringing in the tea and refreshments and she wondered if Ayumi had simply asked Mizore to assist her. The kijo had been in her service for three hundred years and had done such with some of her other children when they were young, which they were often more than willing to do.
She hid her amusement at the cautious respect Takeru gave to the kijo as she filled his cup. For all that the Shiba Clan and its retainers were more than up to the task of taking on most youkai, they were always polite and respectful to any youkai they met in a peaceful setting. If there was anyone who knew how to deal with youkai, it would be the Shibas and their retainers.
As Ayumi bowed and quietly left the office, Mizore took a seat on one of the available cushions. Sachiko pretended to not notice her youngest daughter subtly make sure her tail was out of the way as she sat down. That had become a habit of her daughter's over the last two months, though she had since readjusted to having the heightened senses of a youkai after two years with more limited senses.
And knowing her daughter, especially after the two years of watching her in SAO, she would be fishing for information right... about...
"Mom, Lord Shiba, if I might ask, what's the purpose of this meeting and why am I involved?" Mizore asked, her gaze sharpening.
Sachiko looked at Takeru and nodded. "Lord Shiba, if you would," she said.
Takeru took a breath before looking back at her. "Miss Mizore, this has more to do with some enquiries your mother made to me about Alfheim Online," he said. "She wanted to know if it was possible that what happened with Sword Art Online could or would happen with it. And by the expression on your face, you think that it was probably unnecessary."
Mizore shot her mother an irritated look. "It should be, Lord Shiba," she said. "I can understand her concerns, but that AmuSphere and ALO have been on the market for close to a year without anything remotely similar happening. While I can't say that youkai are playing it, it is probable. I knew of several other youkai in SAO. Five tengu, three kitsune, two hashihime, a hone onna and a zashiki warashi. So it's doubtful that the AmuSphere would not accept youkai."
Takeru nodded. "And you would be correct," he said. "But you do understand why your mother would like to be sure in this matter."
Mizore nodded. "I do understand," she said as she turned to face Sachiko. "I also did my research so I could build any arguments to reassure you, mom."
Sachiko nodded. She could hear the note of rebuke in her daughter's voice, but paid it no mind. "I spent two years watching you trapped in one game," she said, her tails twitching slightly. "That is admittedly a short time for us, but I was hoping that you would be able to at least go through your first few decades of life before facing a life threatening situation. You handled yourself well in there, but you are still young, daughter."
She turned to Takeru. "I take it that you found no indications that what happened within Sword Art Online will happen with this game?" She asked.
Takeru nodded and took a sip of his tea before replying. "No, there was nothing," he said. "The possibilities of it happening intentionally, be it RECT or some other actor, have been investigated through various means. While we cannot completely discount the possibility of players getting trapped within the game and unable to log themselves out at some point, such an incident would not be like Sword Art Online. The AmuSphere is designed with many safeties to prevent it from killing the user, including using a different means for the immersion within the virtual environment."
Sachiko nodded. "I noticed that you are not saying that what happened with the Nerve Gear is completely impossible with the AmuSphere," she noted.
"We consulted someone who knows a bit more about the means and methods than we do," Takeru admitted. "Full-Dive technology is still too new for us to speak with complete confidence that we fully know enough about it to know what other things could cause a similar incident."
Sachiko raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"An out of towner by the name of Gordon," Takeru replied.
Mizore snorted. "I've heard of him," she said. "Saying he's out of town is a bit of an understatement there."
"It is one, yes," Takeru said with a smile. "I take it you learned of him from August?"
Mizore nodded.
"So he said it's safe then," Sachiko noted.
"To a point," Takeru said. "He made no claims that players can't get trapped in the game because of someone's actions or a simple glitch, but he did note that the AmuSphere won't kill the player if it's removed from them while they are playing."
Sachiko nodded. "My own investigations indicated as much," she said. She saw that Mizore seemed to be about to say something before holding her peace. "But I wanted a second opinion on this. I don't know modern technology as well as many younger generations do, and you humans are more willing to adopt modern technologies than youkai are."
Takeru shook his head. "Many humans who are magical are not as eager to adopt new technologies as my family is, Lady Yasaka," he said. "We do so because it's not only practical for us to do so, but because the threats we often face are often doing so as well. The younger ones are more willing, if only because they've grown up knowing about it, but many magical families are slow to do so. Magic works well enough for their needs, after all. Those is larger cities may have adopted more modern technologies, but that is more due to exposure and convenience."
Sachiko nodded to that. After more than eight centuries of life, keeping more or less with the times was instinctive to her simply because it was a survival trait. She herself might be a couple of decades behind, but she knew what many of the bits of modern technology were and the basics of how they worked. She did make sure to get a few university degrees over the last century, after all.
That, and going to university every few decades under an alias was also a good excuse for her to dump the responsibilities of the position onto one of her older children for a few years as well.
February 15, 2025 - London, Ministry of Magic
Amelia Bones put her quill down and sent the last of her completed paperwork off to where it needed to go before stretching. It might be a Saturday, but she often came in for a bit to keep her paperwork to a reasonable level, rather than the small mountain of it she would have to deal with if she took the weekend off. Many workers often thought that department heads in the ministry had all the perks and didn't have to work. Thoughts that she admittedly had when she first started.
Granted, some department heads were like that, but most worked late, came in on days off, didn't take nearly as many vacations as they should and often didn't get to enjoy the perks of being in charge nearly as much as they would have liked. Amelia often thought that being in charge was just another way of saying "Working myself into an early grave."
Some would bring up how well she was paid, and the other forms of compensation, as if that meant anything when she mentioned that she was probably working herself to a premature death. Amelia had responded on more than one occasion that it only meant that she was working herself into a nicer grave.
At least her reason for being here, other than keeping her paperwork down, was simple enough and wouldn't keep her as long as was normal for her. The extradition of Theodore Nott Sr. was going apace, with the Japanese aurors having already passed along what they found out from the man, which wasn't much to begin with outside of it being so poorly planned. Sort of sad, really, raising the ire of the Emperor's own demon hunters for such a shoddy plan. That they were forewarned wasn't immaterial when he could have at least made them work at it a little before catching him. She wondered how Bill could maintain his Slytherin pride some days.
The details of it were amusing to read though. Having been spotted by Harry Potter and his muggle fiancée and distracting him with her exclaiming on wanting to show Mister Potter something and then dragging him into a lingerie shop was worth a chuckle or two. Those two had been through enough in that illusory world to have their heightened survival instincts still running high, so the fact that Nott had been spotted wasn't surprising to her. She knew better than to think a spell would do it all, one had to put effort into actually knowing how to blend in and not stand out to begin with for stealth magic to work well in crowded areas. Especially in the middle of the day.
And Nott, being an obvious and oddly dressed foreigner, would stand out in Tokyo like a lumos in a dark room as it was. More so than Potter did, as Potter at least knew muggle fashion to a degree and how the locals dressed. He would still stand out, but less so that Nott did.
But still, the fact that he did it on his own initiative, without being subtly talked into it by someone, was unexpected. Theodore Nott Sr. wasn't known as a man of initiative, usually being prodded into doing something. Him doing this on his own was somewhat, but not entirely, out of character.
That he didn't intend to do any real permanent harm to Mister Potter, just rough him up and intimidate the young man, was completely in character, though. He might have gotten off when Riddle was first defeated, but information gained from Death Eaters they were able to interrogate or get to turn evidence over for a reduced sentence mentioned that he didn't have the stomach for the more violent and bloodier activities that said group had often engaged in and tried to find ways to get out of doing them.
That was found out within a few days meant that he could have been repatriated sooner, had both the Ministry of Magic and the Ministry of Shugenja not decided to let him sweat a bit while they made sure that all of the paperwork was done perfectly and completely without error. The kind of torment on someone that only professional bureaucrats could inflict on someone.
As for repatriating Mr. Nott... Amelia smirked to herself. Well, the good Sergeant Major was still attached to Mr. Potter's case at the moment. Might be amusing to find out if Theo would actually shit himself at the sight of Gravel. Not too many within the social circles that Nott was a part of would be unafraid if someone like Bloody Bill showed up to fetch them in person.
Part of her toyed with the idea of going to Abe Dumbledore's pub with Bill on the second Sunday of the month. Some of the Slytherin Quidditch alum still drank and chinwagged there every month, and that gave a rather nice cross section of those that would agree with Nott and those that wouldn't.
Tossing Gravel in there, the man that had captained many of them from a beater's broom... there was a certain appeal. Might make anyone else getting ideas think. Potter needed time to adjust and not deal with wizarding politics sweeping him up.
That, and she was sure that something was being done in the background involving the young man. He might be staying in Japan for the time being, perhaps for several years, but he would have to come back to Britain on occasion for official reasons. And if she remembered right, it would be best that some of those things got done soon, as Mister Potter would be occupied starting in April.
February 19, 2025 - Alfheim, Yggdrasil City (Sealed)
It was easy for CARDINAL to avoid the attention of ALO's GMs as she integrated herself into its system and set up shop in one of the areas that currently wasn't accessible to the players. Rather than using the Admin zones, she had chosen here, despite knowing that it would become accessible soon enough.
And even then, she wasn't directly supervising ALO, but the copy of her that was made from the SAO Beta when they copied the game engine. She made sure that her copy was updated and was slightly more capable than the 'dumb AI' that the SAO beta had, but generally let her handle things. That was what she was made for, after all. She did keep an eye on the younger AI, even advised it at times, but outside of her own project, she let things be.
She looked around the city that would soon become available to the players. It was nice enough, she supposed. In her opinion the architecture could better reflect that it was in a tree. Maybe taking cues from the island based locales in Aincrad, like Selmburg. Perhaps a mix of both.
Her biases in favor of Aincrad were another reason why she was more than willing to leave ALO's administration to her counterpart. Aincrad had been her home, a place that she had grown alongside of. Where she became the AI she was today.
And she would admit that she missed that place. She looked at her reflection in a window, noting the changes she had made to her avatar to reflect that she wasn't in SAO any more. She still wore the robes she preferred, but she had patterned her avatar off an Undine's. Blue hair, blue eyes and pointed ears, all for making sure that if she was spotted by players, they wouldn't think anything was amiss.
So, she walked along Yggdrasil City's streets to a small out of the way place. She had easily hidden the location from the GMs and had decided that this would be the location where she worked.
Ég stýrði augum stjörnanna, sýndu mér hvað er leitað, she chanted. It had taken her some time to develop this spell to find the pieces of what she sought. She wasn't an admin AI here, and while she still had some admin privileges, she was far more limited as well. She had to do some things much like a player would, if in her own way. What was what she was doing called again? Right, scrying.
While SAO was ongoing, Kayaba had also been working on a separate project. One that was both simple and ambitious. The time and resources it took to develop the engine for SAO had taken hundreds of developers five years to build. RECT, or more appropriately Noboyuki Sugou, had simply copied the entire thing wholesale from the SAO Beta servers in order to save time and money.
What Kayaba had been working on had been almost complete when SAO had been ended early. She had sent it as a compressed package to the ALO servers while she convinced Yui and Strea to come over to here and had learned that parts of it had fragmented off and were now scattered throughout ALO.
She had sent Yui and Strea out into ALO proper to search for the bits that were there while she combed the deeper processes for other fragments. That it would also give them a place to live and interact with others was merely a bonus, or so she told them. At any rate, the last of the fragments had been gathered a week ago, and she was close to finishing putting the entire package together.
Kayaba's last gift to the world. A tool for people to build their own worlds and write their own stories.
The World Seed.