~Seventh Floor~
While Ana had finished her breakfast and waited for the others of the guild to eat their breakfast, she went up to the bedroom and woke Anabelle from her nap. At the current point, she'd definitely had enough sleep. Plus, Anabelle needed to be there to explain the situation to everyone.
"Mmm?"
Anabelle protested getting out of bed, which was something Ana recognized right away when she thought of how she normally was outside of the game when she would wake up. She wanted to extend her time relaxing in the soft embrace of bed. However, Anabelle still didn't even wear her proper pyjamas when she fell asleep. She obviously wouldn't be comfortable in the base armour set she was wearing.
"Wakey wakey, Anabelle. We have a busy day today."
Ana's whispers were enough to get Anabelle out of her post-sleep laziness.
"Mama!"
As soon as she saw her mother, Anabelle reached up and did her best to reach her arms around her. Anabelle was always ready to snuggle with her mother. It was just how their bodies fit together, the feeling of her protective mother with her caring feeling about her...everything was so soothing to Anabelle, and she didn't want to waste any opportunity to feel it.
"Good morning, sleepy head. There's some more food for you since you ate not long ago. How do you feel about..."
Ana pressed the table option for the bed and the table set up on the side for once, adjusting to how they were positioned on the bed. Ana placed down a small plate, with a rice souffle omelet and some berries for a side. Anabelle looked at the small plate of food with interest and she even said she couldn't possibly eat it.
"Eat your food. You want to grow up tall like me, maybe bigger, then you need to eat your food. Not that it really applies while we're stuck in here, but you still need to eat. There's the hunger bar right? Well, if that goes too low, then you'll start losing your hit points. We still feel hunger and consequences of not fulfilling our hunger in here, so you need to eat your food. Besides, remember your porridge before? I can make all of this food super easy. I'll teach you how to make it too."
Ana was changing her tone of how she talked with Anabelle, and it was surprising how much she liked the more relaxed and happy tone she was able to express so freely with Anabelle.
Anabelle nodded her head and dug in with the provided spoon, scooping a mouthful of the rice omelet first. She squirmed and sighed in happiness at the taste of the food.
"Mama's food is the best~!"
Ana beamed happily to hear and feel how happy Anabelle was from eating the food. Learning how to cook was mostly for this kind of experience for her. To hear and feel the satisfaction of the people she prepared the food for. The happiness when they truly enjoyed something she made.
After a few minutes, Anabelle finished eating her true breakfast for the day, and she mumbled a little.
"I won't get too big from eating so much of Mama's food, will I?"
Ana laughed and hugged Anabelle tight.
"Not in here you won't! You can have all you like! As long as you're careful and don't eat too much beyond the capacity of your hunger at the top. Anyway, now it's time for you to meet everyone else in the guild I've been leading. We want to try and get up to the next floor of this place today, so there are things I want to go over today."
Anabelle broke free of the hug a little and smiled.
"Right!"
After having it decided, Ana picked Anabelle up and walked them downstairs to the restaurant, and when she walked to the far end where she could safely be in their presence, Ana sat down and perched Anabelle sitting on her lap.
"Uh...how far along was your pregnancy, Ana-san?"
Yuuki asking that question was the point where everyone sighed and looked at the floor in their embarrassment of her.
"This is my daughter, Anabelle. She logged into the game after the launch of the game, so that she could relieve some of the issues that are happening outside of the game around her. I'd like everyone to welcome her kindly."
Ana's text box was partially a warning to them to mind their manners with Anabelle.
Leafa, Sinon and Sachi were excited to meet Anabelle properly, so they stood up and looked at Ana for permission to approach closer. After a nod, Ana sighed and they approached. The first to ask Anabelle a question was Leafa.
"How old are you, Anabelle-chan?"
Anabelle smiled and answered in Japanese. As far as Anabelle was considering the people around her, everyone but her mother was to be talked to with Japanese. It was surprising how much Anabelle knew of Japanese already.
"I'm nine and a half...well, I'll be ten in five months!"
Leafa smiled and nodded her head. She was about to ask another question but Sinon interrupted her.
"I'm Sinon, and the blond haired girl is Leafa. The girl in black at the back is Kirito, and she's my childhood friend, and Leafa's older sister and cousin."
Sinon was testing the water a little on how much Anabelle knew Japanese to be able to understand and answer Sinon. Little did she know, Anabelle was prepared for something like that with a witty remark.
"Kiritonee-chan already has sisters? So then you're also nee-chans!"
Sinon and Leafa were flustered by Anabelle's response. Sachi asked her question before Sinon and Leafa could argue over the relationship topic.
"How long have you been learning Japanese? You're so fluent and clear. Your voice is really pretty too, Anabelle-chan."
Anabelle smiled and responded to Sachi right away.
"I've known how to speak Japanese for two years. Ever since I learned Mama lived in Japan, I started learning, and I have a speaking partner who stopped teaching me four years ago. I also know how to write Japanese too, so I can send those message boxes like Mama sent before too."
Everyone was shocked to hear how impressive Anabelle was. It wasn't just Ana they were putting on a pedestal, because Anabelle was just as impressive.
"Uuu...she could probably teach me in school..."
That comment from Lisbeth broke the surprise everyone had that Anabelle was so fluent in Japanese for a reason. The silence and Lisbeth's comment were followed with laughter.
Kirito and Asuna walked to the front and urged Sinon Leafa and Sachi back to their seats, before continuing the talk.
"We met Anabelle-chan this morning, and since Ana has decided on us monopolizing a floor for Anabelle's safety, Asuna and I have thought of a little change in organization. Since our best bet in clearing any floor is Ana, Asuna and I will stay back and take care of Anabelle while everyone else defeats the floor boss. Since Anabelle is in the guild already, that means she can also be teleported after we defeat the floor boss, which makes it easy for us three to follow to the next floor."
Ana heaved a sigh of relief on hearing that kind of idea having come from Kirito and Asuna. They must have discussed it while Ana woke Anabelle and had breakfast. She was impressed how much they were thinking ahead.
"Is that really okay?"
Ana nodded her head, and sent out another text window to the rest of the guild.
"This idea can definitely work. As long as we split our division of the active force for this floor boss to having Leafa and Sinon supporting my main tanking as usual, Sachi and Agil supporting Yuuki in off-tanking, and Lisbeth pushing out debilitation with her magic hammer from the side, we should be perfectly fine. At least, so long as we don't have floor one's situation again. If we do have floor one's situation, we'll take the chance and bring Moonlight Black Cats and Fuurinkazan in for a full raid so that they could hold off the other monsters. The best case situation, we don't need them to come along."
With Ana's words in the text window, everyone felt reassured. They were surprised Ana would even consider inviting the other guilds along for the run, but when they took another look at Anabelle on her lap, they knew there was a very strong case and reason for Ana's words.
Asuna chimed in after everyone seemed ready.
"Well now, since we don't even know where the dungeon is, I suppose this would be the mark to tell you all it's time to head off. It's time for this elder sister to have some bonding time with her little sister."
Leafa and Sinon realized with those words why Anabelle called them elder sisters as well. Apparently she knew about Asuna and Kirito. They had even less reason to interfere with the relationship between them in the end, with their conscience for Anabelle's sake.
A brief full introduction between everyone and Anabelle so that she knew what everyone's name was, a bit of how they joined the guild and how they were doing with the other people of the guild. Overall, Anabelle was happy. Everyone was kind and they were...well, they were all keeping in mind that Ana and Asuna were right there and it would be highly unwise to test their patience.
When Ana and the others left the inn, Anabelle left behind with Asuna and Kirito, Anabelle felt bored right away. She looked at the new people in her family and she wondered what more they would let her learn about them. If they would show her around outside of the inn a little. She thought of something that could be fun, since she recalled her mother mentioning they liked cooking.
"Can you teach me some cooking stuff?"
Asuna was thrilled at the topic which was brought up. Kirito was also happy, but she was a little awkward with Anabelle, since Ana was no longer present to keep Anabelle's actions within full control. Kirito still didn't know Anabelle much, and she was more used to taking care of Leafa and Sinon. They were easy since she had grown up with them. Despite that, she would try her best to warm up to Anabelle while she had a chance to.
When the three of them entered the kitchen, Asuna began removing a series of items from her inventory, which like Ana had taught to her, she taught to Anabelle what they were equivalent to, and how to mix them to become something else closer to real life. Useful things for cooking and other situations. Fruits and some vegetables were essentially the exact same as real life, just at lower qualities at their lower floors within Aincrad. After mixing a few things and showing Anabelle a few tricks, Asuna decided to show her how to make ice cream within the game. It least for the time being, it would be a decent idea for keeping their energy up a little in the morning.
Anabelle was happy spending time with Asuna. She really for some reason didn't feel totally comfortable with Kirito. Like she didn't know something about her that she should.
"Kiritonee-chan, why does your name sound like a boy name?"
Blunt and straight to the point. Kirito thought for a moment if Anabelle was really Ana's child. The blunt manner of speaking was just like Ana though. Ana just didn't need to ask the question to know the answer. Was such a topic fine to talk to Anabelle about? Kirito took a breath and thought about it, realizing how little different it would be from telling her about being in a relationship with Asuna. With a little calm and confidence in herself to answer the question, Kirito answered.
"I used to be a boy."
That didn't seem to surprise Anabelle in the slightest, she only seemed more confused.
"Then...why do you still go by a boy name if you're a girl now? Kirito sounds so strange when seeing you. You look more like a...Kirizu. Like my speaking partner for learning Japanese. Her name was Zuzu Kiriya. Or...I guess Kiriya Zuzu going by proper order of naming."
Kirito was surprised to hear that name from Anabelle. One of her classmates from school was doing online courses, but she hadn't heard what kind of online classes. If it were linguistics and she were talking with people like Anabelle, then that would somehow make sense. She was so good at speaking English after all...
"I like that name too!"
Asuna gave her opinion of the different name for Kirito within Aincrad. She leaned in close and whispered at hopefully a low enough volume to Kirito further opinion.
"Maybe Kazuto is also a little too boyish as well. Kazu is a very nice name if we consider keeping the name you received from your parents as well. Maybe consider it and talk to Ryra-sensei about it."
Asuna's suggestion had also been heard by Anabelle. She like her mother had very good perception of sound...
"Kazu is a pretty name too! It also means wind, which is just like you since you're so fast, onee-chan."
The support from Anabelle on the topic of a name change was somehow very soothing for Kirito. She thought on it, and sent out a guild message to check the opinions of the others on changing her in game name to the one Anabelle suggested first. For outside of the game, her decision on changing her name to just being Kazu was something she would take her time to decide. Probably make up her mind when she finally had the courage and the time with the floors to go through with having the surgery done on her. She would drag that out for a while yet...but she didn't want to wait until she was out of the game to experience the surgery otherwise.
With a lot of agreement on Kirizu suiting her more, she changed it over. At that moment, Kirito became Kirizu, and the rest of the guild arrived at the boss room door. As far as handling the dungeon, after finding it, Ana used her calculating to find the fastest path to the boss room door, and they easily ran through all of the monsters along the way with ease. The balance of the party just worked that well.
After Ana did a check on everyone's equipment, items and the readiness of everyone with their strengths, she pushed the door open to check the other side. It was still morning, another hour before lunch time. The other side of the door showed a lone boss monster which by Ana's guess would be even easier to handle than the previous floor boss the guild had defeated. Which was good since there were less of the guild present, but it was also not such a big difference with the quality of the equipment being all caught up in comparison who how well equipped they were for the last battle.
The monster they faced when they walked to the other side of the door, was a giant enraged snow troll. Trolls were one of the faster monster types, and like trolls from many games, they were especially weak to fire, and had the ability to self regenerate their health if they aren't afflicted with debilitation or burned. Ana started the battle by leaping in with her only skill use of the battle, a sonic leap with the enchantment of flame on her weapon. With the flaming sonic leap burning the snow troll floor boss, she set to immediately creating opportunity for the rest of the guild to move to their positions, stunning the monster continuously and cutting through the weak points to stack up bleeding effects from the flurry of strikes. As fast as the troll was at moving about and attacking, it was also a very simple pattern of movements it had and developed the more it fought.
At the half way mark for the hit points, the troll changed almost completely to a different monster that hadn't shown up in Aincrad yet. Sagely troll, was a variation on the troll where it goes from enraged to calm, and it uses highly calculated movements to return the opposition of its opponents on them, but it could only attack physically. Thankfully, Ana knew how to keep the focus of the troll on her, and the others could freely continue to lay damage on it. She had some difficulty working past the countering type of nature of the sagely troll. She tried method after method of breaking through, and eventually she found a pattern of the troll which suited very well for breaking through its countering and defences which wouldn't put her in the danger of being countered. She would lure out a counter with a skill, then unleash bursts of normal attacks which were far more controlled from her so that she could unleash as much damage on it as possible. At the enrage point of the battle, the boss didn't change at all. No new mechanic or pattern of attacks occurred, and the battle progressed smoothly to the point of the monster shattering from the hit points reaching zero. Everyone was completely fine...aside their hunger. They had worked up their appetites from not having even a snack before heading in for the fight. Regardless, as the victory music began to play, Ana sent the teleport link to Anabelle, Kirizu and Asuna. When they appeared from accepting the teleport request, those who hadn't been present for the actual changing of Kirizu's name nodded their heads in their support of her name change. Seeing that name above her head suited her far more than the masculine Kirito.
After a brief relaxation between everyone, hugs shared between those who were in the mood for them, everyone headed up to the new floor. Floor seven still had somewhat of a snow and winter theme. The light snowfall with the kind of atmosphere of spring, the snow melting on the ground around them, showing through the ground and roads underneath was something that was interesting to those who weren't used to having so much snow piled up. Of course, it also meant that it was foreign to them to experience the previous two floors with all of the snow on the ground and treading through the somewhat deep substance which could impede their travels through the floor.
Ana in a part of her wanted to enable her virtual vision to appreciate the sight of it, recalling how beautiful her home town could be when she didn't consider some of the people in that home town. It was an older town in her country, one which was built for the support of the construction of the railroad. That town still to the day had a mostly European style to it, and at times, renovation moved in that direction more and more. Construction would fix the roads of the downtown area from the easily shaped asphalt and pavement into the shaped and sturdy cobblestone which were smoothed out for the more modern feel when vehicles would pass over, but to the feet, the slight feel to the uneven shape of the stones underfoot were something she could really appreciate. It made it easier to know where she was when she was growing up, not as used to using her perception to get around. The sounds of the town were never pleasant, but at least always loud enough during the day to appreciate the ability it lent to her in providing the echolocation she needed to know where everything was around her. At night, the place had felt similar to how the seventh floor of Aincrad's town felt. Mystical, like she had been plopped into a story in a deserted, beautiful location. The feeling of the slow falling snow, the sensation of the warm snow melting against the skin. The weight of the snow as it stuck to the clothing which wasn't quite warm enough to melt the snow.
Everyone enjoyed the atmosphere of the town much more than they thought they might. For Ana, she was right back home at the most comfortable time of day she had ever experienced. It was so relaxing, she almost wanted to walk over to a snow bank and drop into it, let it lull her to sleep with the silence of the snow fall.
Ana actually needed some noise to generate her perception of the area, so she started forward again, the clacking of her boots echoing off the surroundings telling her where she was, and the relativity of where other things were. It was so easy for the sound to get lost with all the muffling effects from the snow. She would have only expected that in real life to be accurate, sounds being muffled by snow. But it was working so well, she truly felt she had been dropped back into the real world and amazingly had everyone from the guild with her to experience it.
She continued forward, and everyone found an inn near the teleport plaza where they could sit down. This time, when they ventured to the new floor, they had been fully prepared for such a thing as the last tragedy to occur, and left their messaging open for others to tell them about how the situation was on lower floors. Nothing that needed to be address was happening below, so when everyone sat down in the new inn to eat lunch, there was a calm atmosphere. Ana was reminded how nice it could be at times with her family when they weren't arguing or making other noise. The sound of everyone eating and enjoying their food was something which again, brought her back home. Anabelle sitting on her lap while they ate lunch together was something else which she couldn't get over. She loved every moment of being close with the people who had become the family around her. Plenty of people from all kinds of situations, could be brought together easily by any one goal they might share. Any one commonality no matter how small. Everyone there, was together for the most part, for the sake of working their way out of the game, and continue their lives outside, with a better view on it than they'd had before entering the game.
Ana and Anabelle leaned back after finishing their lunch and sighed. They were just so happy, that they could let go of their concerns.
For everyone else, the thought came to mind that they hadn't paid attention to the event rankings and leader board. Kirizu piped up and mentioned that if anyone wanted to continue working on the gathering of presents for the event, then they should start forming teams on whoever they wanted to work together with. Ana and Anabelle didn't take part, because Ana had already decided that she was going to slowly and steadily introduce the entirety of the game in ways she could teach it well and it would stick with her.
Kirizu and Asuna left with Sinon and Leafa following behind them. Everyone else grouped up without much of a word to each other, and headed out. When it was just Ana and Anabelle left, Ana stood up and lifted Anabelle up, turning her around to face her and set her down gently on her feet.
"How do you feel about some learning?"
When Anabelle gave a nod with an excited sound to a hum of her voice, Ana smiled. The day would be very full of Anabelle learning, and they would even add some event present collecting to their lessons. Anabelle truly did learn fast. Ana could only be proud of her daughter. Ana had been thinking in the beginning when she heard Anabelle, that she would feel guilty if Anabelle was born with some of the issues that Ana faced. The lack of vision. The anxiety. Other issues came to mind, but thankfully, ever so thankfully, Anabelle was perfectly healthy and happy. Ana couldn't be happier. As a mother, she was only more and more proud that Anabelle was able to make such a choice as she did. She could be selfish. She could be confident. Proud. She could do things that made Ana envious, but all the more proud that since she couldn't, her daughter could. Ana only hoped that any other children she would bring into the world would be just as healthy and happy as Anabelle.
The seventh floor was like home, and having Anabelle with her in such a place, Ana could only swell with the happiness that she felt.