It only took a couple more days for Beta to fill up their cottage, all of their individual rooms with decorations which reflected their personalities. They had their own permanent space within Aincrad, and they could teleport back to it at any time so long as they weren't engaged in battle. Kirito wanted to explore the floor while everyone else wanted to savour a good couple of days in their home, some privacy.
The wooden plank walkway from cottage to cottage was such a wonderful feel, the woods were filled with passive wild life. It was like...in some small way returning to reality. Hours passed as Kirito savoured taking in the environment and night began to fall over the lowest level of the floor where their home was. As he turned around to head back to the cottage, he spotted a white glowing figure in the woods he hadn't yet. A chill ran down his spine that it might have been his mind playing tricks on him, or that it was nothing special, but part of him also hoped it was a special quest nobody had done yet.
Kirito walked over to where he had seen the white glowing figure in the forest, and found evidence of human shaped footprints, small enough to be younger than Silica's. The footprints were also barefooted, so the person wasn't in equipment. It was more likely to be an NPC than a player, something quest related. More and more Kirito grew interested and pursued the direction the footsteps led him. Past some passive squirrels, birds, foxes and a lynx, he finally arrived in a tiny clearing in the forest where a child in a long white shirt was laid on the ground. She had long black hair which reminded Kirito of his own with how long it reached.
Kirito hurried to help her up, but try as he might to figure out any information, his examine skill turned up no information, and she didn't even have a name on her. It's like, she wasn't part of Aincrad. A quick look at his hand reminded Kirito he was looking at pixels, and it wasn't real life so it had to be part of the game world.
Kirito picked her up after trying for minutes to wake her up, and he ported back to the house with her on his back. Thankfully she moved with him during the contact. The scent of dinner wafted through the air as Kirito opened the door, and he walked right to the lounge space after closing the door behind him.
"Welcome ba-what happened?!"
Asuna's shout alerted the rest of the people in the cottage and they all hurried into the lounge space where Kirito was checking on the child's state however he could without the aid of the system, because it wasn't working on her. No items worked, no skills worked, he had to function off of old habits which had nearly been forgotten.
"Is she alright?"
The question from Silica was met with a quick response.
"She's healthy as far as I can determine. She's not a player avatar. She's not an npc. She's not a mob of any sort. All game systems don't work on her. I've just finished going over an irl basic aid analysis and she's healthy, alive and breathing. She's just asleep for now. Hopefully she wakes up soon so we get some answers."
Kirito's explanation set everyone's minds at ease, but the confusing situation only continued to linger in their minds as everyone aside Kirito and Asuna kept watching her while passively doing other things. Kirito and Asuna finished making dinner together, and Kirito sat down next to the girl as he ate. He would share his food with her if she woke...and she did. The close stimulus of the scent of the food might have awakened her.
"Mmm-"
She stretched a little with her arms and legs and turned over to look up at Kirito's face, and then the food on the plate. He offered her a spoonful of the soup which she ate up quickly. A high pitched happy hum came from her and everyone watched her.
"How are you feeling?"
She appeared to be waiting for Kirito to feed her another spoonful of soup, and he obliged.
"Are you doing okay?"
She nodded her head. At least he knew that she understood him. He continued to feed her. He still had the full status from lunch so he didn't particularly need to eat any of his dinner.
"Do you remember what happened before you woke up here?"
She looked up at Kirito after eating the spoonful he had just fed her and gave him a confused expression. He sighed and patted her head as he fed her another bite. He remembered that he added a little more spice to his food because he liked his a little spicier than the rest of the group. Thankfully it seemed that the girl had no problem with the level of spiciness.
"Do you know where you are?"
She gave Kirito a look which made him feel like he should open up his maps relating to their location in Aincrad. The four maps that showed up, she pointed at one spot on each map, all matching where the cottage was. Twenty second floor, bottom layer, cottage at the eastern side of the easternmost lake.
"Very good. Uhm...are you a player, or an NPC?"
She gave him another confused expression. Kirito pointed to Kiin on his shoulder to signify NPC, and pointed to himself as a player for reference.
She shook her head.
"Are you neither?"
She nodded her head.
"Interesting..."
Kirito nodded his head in understanding, but it only pushed him to believe that she was an NPC, just not one specifically of the game. The game was run through a highly advanced operating system, and from his studies during the beta test, it had some crazy level of technology behind it.
"Can you speak?"
She nodded in response to that question.
"A name?"
She shook her head side to side exaggeratedly and opened her mouth for some more soup. Kirito happily fed her as she provided answers more and more. He was beginning to understand the situation.
"A home?"
Her response was hugging Kirito's waist and said her first word to them.
"Mama!"
All eyes were on Kirito. Certainly the girl bore a resemblance to him. Long black hair, same eye colour, similar facial structure, she was just shorter and younger overall. The confusing thing for everyone was, how? They all knew Kirito was male outside of the game by this point.
"Mama~ mama~"
She happily called Kirito mama over and over before sitting on his lap and shoveling more of the soup into her mouth.
"Congratulations Kirito. How old is she?"
Kirito sighed deeply and gently patted her head.
"I honestly have no idea how old she is."
"She has your sense of taste, your hair, and eyes, so it's hard to deny she's yours in those aspects, but how? Did you go off with a guy at some point?"
Kirito violently shook his head side to side and the girl on his lap hummed as she finished the soup in the bowl.
"Aside this afternoon, I've rarely had time I was on my own. I've always been with someone from our guild so everyone would know if I was doing something like that. No. And you know there's no way I would relax that much in here. Getting out is the most important thing."
Neglecting to mention that he still considered himself male and that he already had someone he liked, they only continued to gaze at him speculatively with the girl on his lap.
"You two are ridiculously cute together though. Maybe give her a name? She shook her head to your question of her having one."
Kirito thought about it for a few seconds before a name came to mind.
"What do you think of Yui?"
She nodded her head and looked up to Kirito's face. He wiped a bit of slop from her face with a finger and she smiled wide.
"Surprisingly good naming sense."
The comment from Lisbeth lit up Kirito's cheeks in embarrassment.
"Well, for now I'll take care of her, but tomorrow morning I'll bring her to the town of beginnings just in case there's someone there who recognizes her. We know as cute as this is that it's not true, so hopefully we can figure something out so I don't get stuck here raising a child while we're stuck in Aincrad."
Kirito brought up a very valid point.
"True, and we could help by showing a picture of her around to see if anyone recognizes her on other floors."
His mind at ease that they had a plan for tomorrow regarding Yui, he fed her some desert in the form of pudding and tucked her into bed. She fell asleep very quickly. Yui slept in his bed, and he would join her as soon as he would finish talking details over with the rest of the guild.
"I have a feeling..."
"That she might be a manifestation of your uber strong motherly instincts?"
Kirito gave that comment a glare.
"No, Sinon. I have a feeling that the operating system for Aincrad might have been studying us and she was generated from rogue information. She could be an AI. Not necessarily the kind of AI we know from regular life outside of the game, not like NPC characters in game with presets. I think she might be a very advanced AI."
Kirito's suggestion made a lot of sense to those not ready to joke about everything.
"But then what's the point in bringing her to the first floor?"
Kirito's expression grew depressed.
"As much as I crave studying and figuring out how advanced an AI she could be, our goal is still to progress through the game. There's a daycare for child NPCs and young players in the Town of Beginnings. I could do some information gathering down there, and maybe figure out if the daycare can take care of her so we don't need to worry about her while progressing."
"She's a little young minded to be leaving her to a daycare, Kirito."
That comment came from Asuna.
"Then what do I do? Play mother for her until she's old enough to leave with the daycare? That could take weeks, months even. We don't have that kind of luxury of time. It occurred to me recently, that we should really be thinking about the outside a little more. Yes, being comfortable in here enough to not wear ourselves out is important, but what's happening to our bodies outside? We're not getting the exercise or nutrition our bodies need out there, we're not getting any younger out there. Time is passing just as much as it is in here as far as I know, and hospitals usually don't keep such a massive amount of patients for such an extended period of time. The cost of keeping us alive on life support only goes as far as our families can afford. As much as I value Yui's existence, the little time she's been in our lives, she might only be a temporary part of our lives. Rogue information is likely to be cleaned, unless Aincrad isn't running a scrub program for it. And that would be terrifying in itself if Aincrad wasn't running a scrub on rogue information, because all it takes to kill us all is one powerful virus attack on the network housing the game's main servers."
Kirito's completely depressed expression told them everything. It helped that he explained a lot more than some of them could understand.
"Basically, we have two choices regarding Yui. We completely stop everything we're doing and figure out everything we can about her, taking care of her, or have myself alone do that while everyone else in our guild continues progression. The other option, is that we use the daycare system to have them take care of her during the day while we work on progression, and she spends mornings and overnight with us."
Of the options Kirito laid out, they couldn't think of another solution. The more attractive option, was having Kirito take an extended break to figure everything out regarding Yui. Yui needed and deserved her "parent" if she was basically a child. Information or no, she displayed way too much free will during their meal together to not be real.
Kirito gritted his teeth and groaned.
"Why am I an event magnet...?"
That, earned resounding laughter. Apparently it woke Yui up because she ran through the house and jumped on Kirito's lap. Instinctively, he couldn't help himself. He gave her a head pat and hugged her as if she was really his child. Maybe her data was that she was his child. What did the data she was made with say about him? He wanted to know everything about her.
