"It took me a long time to get my hands on this info, almost six months. I firs' noticed it when I was browsin' through the items in Jeanne's shop, much like you were. There was a consistent minority of items that were as good as, if not better, than mos' of the stuff that the clearers' were usin'. But Jeanne refused to tell me who'd made 'em, and she was the only member o' that group I actually had any contact with.
"So I had to follow her to one of her guild meetings, where I got to see all her guildmates. It wasn't easy, let me tell ya that. Jeanne may be absolutely petrified abou' strangers, but the girl is one o' the most observant people I've seen. I almos' got caught! Me! I almos' got seen by someone withou' the search skill!
"But man, was the payoff worth it.
"Her guild was fairly small; jus' her, an' four others. It was a trade guild, the kind ya see a lot for the upper midliners: a two ta three smiths, depending on how specialized they are, an alchemis', an' a merchant.
"Jeanne was this group's merchant, and she was a decent one. It was clear from their meeting that they weren' tryin' to make a profit, jus' make a lil' money on the side while they "Perfected their skills."
"In short, they were the perfect group to supply the frontlines. I knew there an' then that I wanted to get them a contract with one o' the guilds, so that they could have a steady influx o' materials, if nothin' else, but then one o' them mentioned a somethin' nice.
"The group kept teasin' one o' their smiths, this guy named Marnie, about how close he kept his secret techniques, but none o' them argued tha' he didn't get results, so I knew I had a real investigation on my hands.-"
"Please, Argo," Asuna said, interrupting the rambling Info Broker, "Can you summarize. I've already delayed my date almost half an hour for you."
The Rat looked vaguely affronted at first, but then let out a little chuckle as she glanced between me and Asuna. I raised an eyebrow; I was proud of my love for Asuna, and though I was unworthy of her attention, I would strive my hardest to keep her happy.
"Alright then, I'll let ya two lovebirds go and dance. I'll save my story for after you get back."
"Argo!" I blushed, furiously, and was unceremoniously dragged out of the building by an equally red Asuna, Argo's laughter ringing in our ears. "Honestly, that woman. Why does she always know…" Asuna muttered angrily.
"At least she's teasing us again." I said, hopping so that I could walk with my hand in Asuna's and not get dragged.
"But can she not tease us about…" Asuna flushed an even deeper red.
"You know, for someone so seductive in the bedroom, you really can't talk about sex, can you?" I said, taking over for Asuna in the leading department as she froze up.
"Oh it is on, mister!" Oh shoot. Asuna was entering her competitive mode.
"So when are we going to 'dance', Kirito~" My wife started throwing innuendo at me.
"Um, well, I actually didn't plan to…"
"No 'dancing?'"
"No, No! We can still, um, 'dance'," I said, "Umm, after our walk?"
"I'll hold you to it." I gulped. For all my paper-thin bravado when talking about sex, the idea of actually making love to Asuna still sent me into spirals, despite how often we had, ahem, indulged in the past week.
If my apartment hadn't been soundproofed the same way all player homes were, I was fairly certain we would have gotten noise complaints from our neighbors.
The rest of the walk to the teleport gate was filled with a gentle sort of chatter as we figured out just what we wanted to see on the fourth floor. The early floors were some of the biggest, and there was far more than we could see, even if we took an entire week, but there were a few landmarks we both agreed that we had to visit.
It had been almost a year and a half since we had been to the fourth floor. After we cleared the fourteenth floor, there simply wasn't any material here that a clearer might need, and most of the shops we browsed set themselves up closer to the frontlines. It was nostalgic to be back in Rovia, among the canals and chalk-white buildings that gave the city a distinct quality, almost like foam on a wave.
"So, do you want to catch a play at the theater or go for our walk first?" I asked Asuna, who was staring out over the park we had teleported too with a distant look on her face.
Maybe she was as nostalgic as I was.
"Let's go for a walk, first. I want to see Yofel Castle before it gets dark." Asuna started walking off to the Northwest, towards the forest where we had spent most of our time on the fourth floor.
The woods were far less menacing now then they had been when we were clearing the level, for obvious reasons. The mobs that spawned didn't even try to attack us, our levels too high for them to even have a prayer of damaging us. Even if we were to unequip all of our protective gear, both me and Asuna had the "battle regeneration" skill, which allowed us to heal 0.5% of our health every second while in combat, compared to 45% every minute when out of combat.
None of the mobs here had an attack stat over 100.
"How do you think Viscount Yolfis is doing?" I glanced over at Asuna, running through my mind in thought.
"Well," I started to form my answer, "If this was any other NPC, I'd say that he was probably sticking to his preprogrammed routine, but maybe one of his children convinced him to go outside his office every now and then."
"I don't know about that," Asuna said, "He seemed pretty convinced to stay in his room."
"You make it sound like he's a little kid who won't come out unless his freckles fade."
"Well, isn't he?" Asuna said, cocking her head to one side.
It fit. Ashamed by his physical appearance, and utterly convinced that any show of weakness on his part would shame his family.
"Just, don't tell that to him. I'm fairly sure that would get us kicked out of Yofel." I said to Asuna as we walked through the gradual change in woods that marked the transition from the Bear Woods to the much safer areas surrounding Yofel Castle. The change in areas was marked by a slow change in the BGM, with a much more drum-heavy track replacing the "woods" theme that played for much of the early forest areas.
It made me think of home.
"It's not like we're visiting Yofel itself," Asuna said, brushing one hand over a mossy tree. Even after so long in SAO I was still astounded by how realistic Kayaba had made the game. While we didn't have to go to the bathroom, that was about the only concession to fantasy he had made.
Weapons and armor felt heavy, if you didn't have a decent strength stat. Crafting was so similar to IRL crafting that one person had been able to rocket up the tailoring tree by applying her real-world sewing knowledge. And most of all, the environments felt lived-in.
The moss that Asuna had brushed aside fell to the ground in clumps before it shattered into pixels. Predator mobs would chase prey mobs, and humanoid mobs had guard routines. Even if the AI of most NPCs and mobs was so dumb that it made Skyrim look good by comparison, after all, the Chariotieer wasn't supposed to drive off the edge of the map, the world still felt real in a way no other game before had.
"No, I suppose we're not." While it would have been nice to visit the castle, doing so would have been an all-day trip, and we still had a show to get to.
The woods grew brighter even as the leaves darkened while we approached Yofel, and soon we were walking along one of the streams that dotted the landscape.
I watched as Asuna started to relax, truly stepping away from all her responsibilities and worries here in the forest, so similar to where we hoped to make our home.
I watched as a small, non-hostile squirrel mob rushed across the forest floor in front of us, scurrying up a tree in flight from some predatory mob that avoided us. It was peaceful in a way that even my house wasn't, seeming to almost ooze an aura of contentment, making me want to close my eyes and fall asleep.
But I wanted to fall asleep most of the time, and if I could fight the Gleam Eyes without having slept for two days, then I could stay awake longer for Asuna.
"Kirito," Asuna said from over by a rock that formed a bend in the stream. "Let's sit here for a while, okay?" Well, if my wife insisted… I sat down on the rock next to her, and immediately slumped over onto Asuna's shoulder. It was warm.
I leaned against Asuna's side for a while, the two of us sharing in a quiet comfort.
"Hey, Kirito?" Asuna broke the silence, bringing one of her arms over my shoulders.
"...What is it?" I murmured into her shoulder, torn between rousing myself in response to my wife, and catching up on some sleep. That decision was torn from me when my wife took action.
I heard the distinct sound of someone withdrawing an item from their inventory, and peered across Asuna's body. "Here," She said,
"Ooh, sandwich!" I almost snatched it out of her hands. Asuna had many dishes, but almost nothing tasted as good as her sandwiches did.
"Slow down, Kirito," Asuna said, her voice ever so slightly scolding "If you try to eat so quickly you'll choke yourself."
"'M no gonnurk" I swallowed a bit more sandwich then I meant to, and spent a few minutes coughing as it almost went down the wrong pipe.
"Easy there," Asuna said, rubbing a comforting hand on my back.
"'M fine," I said, going right back to devouring the heavenly sandwich that Asuna had prepped for me. "Let's get going, we still need to see Yofel."
The woods got even more cheerful as we approached a cliff with a good view of our target, seeming to try and set the mood for our date. I smiled as Asuna was overcome with a fit of enthusiasm, and broke out into a light jog as we neared the cliff.
"Hurry up Kirito!" My wife called back, waving at me, "The view's amazing!"
"I'm coming, I'm coming," I said, moving more sedately than my wife, only to feel my breath be taken away as I crested the top of the cliff.
It was so high that even the tallest trees of the forest were far below us, and we had an almost unobstructed view of Yofel Castle, sitting in the middle of it's lake. From so far away, it almost looked small, but I knew that it was one of the tallest structures on Aincrad that wasn't part of a labyrinth.
Virtual light shimmered off of the enormous lake, so vast that I could barely see the other side. I could almost see the warm amber light filtering through the windows of the castle, and the gondolas moving back and forth, bringing soldiers and supplies to and from the castle.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Asuna said, standing by my shoulder.
"Yeah." we stayed silent for a while, taking in the view of the castle before us.
As I watched a bird cross the sky, I remembered something I had found while messing with the menu a week ago. At the time it had seemed almost useless, but now it was valuable.
"Hey, Asuna?" I said, walking back to the edge of the clearing on top of the cliff, getting the program I wanted up in the menu.
"Yes, Kirito?"
"Say Cheese!" I clicked the button on the camera app, forever capturing Asuna's startled expression, laid over an amazing backdrop.
"Kirito?"
"Yes Asuna?" I hummed innocently, this truly was a good picture. I so rarely got to see my wife surprised.
"Did you just take a picture?" Asuna gripped my shoulder, having crossed the twenty-some feet between us in the blink of an eye.
"Yeah, want to see?" I tilted the digital picture towards the fencer. She pouted when she saw the photo.
"Warn me next time, Kirito." She thumped me on the shoulder.
"I did warn you, I said Cheese and everything." I defended under Asuna's unimpressed gaze.
"You know what I mean Kirito."
"I can't help it that you look so cute when you're surprised," I said, as Asuna blushed lightly.
"Still," She said, walking back to the edge of the cliff, "I'd like a proper picture this time," She smiled over her shoulder at me, her hair burning in the sunlight. She looked so radiant it was a wonder my unworthy avatar didn't burst into fire before her beauty.
"Of course, dear." It was the work of a second for Asuna to assume a pose that she liked, and then for me to take the picture.
"Now I'll take a picture of you." We swapped places and I waited as Asuna fiddled with the menu. Oh, did I ever tell her- "Kirito, hun?"
"Beneath the Scan skill tree. You don't need to have Scan equipped."
"Thanks!" Asuna called, binging her hand up in a familiar position. She was going to take a picture. I tried my best to look photogenic. "Say cheese!"
Two seconds later, I relaxed, my face settling back into a much more natural smile than the practiced one I had learned to wear for strategy meetings.
Asuna was frowning at something in the menu as I walked over to her.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine, I just wish we'd brought Argo along." I stopped, a few steps away from seeing the picture she'd taken.
"I thought that this was supposed to be our date?"
"It is," Asuna said, sighing and closing the menu. "But we can't take any couple's photo's like this, and…" My wife gazed out over the lake, refusing to meet my eyes, "She had a breakdown yesterday because we stepped out to chat. I'm worried about her."
The weight of Asuna's words hung over us like a cloud, seeming to erase the comfort that perhaps only I had felt. Was I really so selfish that I ignored a friend desperately in need to have a date with my wife?
"We could head back."
"We should."