November 6th, 2022 – 12:57PM Japan Standard Time.
Almost half an hour ago, MMO Stream had shown the launch trailer for Sword Art Online. And I had bought my copy of the game at the initial sale launch last week. Seven days were more than enough time for 10,000 people to get the game, so that every last copy currently on the market would find use when service began.
Which was in just three minutes. I already had everything plugged in, and I had taken care of all biological obstacles that would otherwise interrupt my play session. I even opted not to have a drink with my lunch – only a shot of water after I'd finished the meal.
Adsila had fried the chicken for me, as her mother was working at the hospital. She then assured me that she was the only other person, other than Alamea, who could get into my room. It meant that if any of her sisters got away with anything dubious, she would not. And it was all I needed to hear.
At 12:59, I finally put the NerveGear on my head, settled comfortably on my back, and then spoke clearly for the command as the clock rolled over to 13:00, closing my eyes upon seeing the time.
"Link Start!"
Everything went white, and multicolored bars zipped past my vision. Then came the sensory checks. Touch, OK. Sight, OK. Hearing, Taste, Smell; OK, OK, OK. Since everyone else was going to be using Japanese text and speech, I selected that language as well. After entering my login details, the game asked me if I wanted to load character data from the beta test – «SAUER» (M). I chose to do it.
A blank, light-gray screen read in black text, 'Welcome to Sword Art Online!' I was sucked through a blue, sparkly vortex, and found myself in a town square, as blue particles dissipated off of my avatar, into the blue, blob-textured sky above me. I contained my chuckle at the watercolor-painted look of the first-floor ceiling, satisfied in my return to the floating castle known as Aincrad. I didn't need to blink, or look at my bare hands. I just had to turn my head to my left, and see a friend from the beta.
"Kirito?" I asked his attention, and he turned to me. It was him. That was his avatar.
"SAUER," he answered with my online name, which I had kept for almost everything I did over the internet since the start of my career, "Good to be back, isn't it?"
"Are you kidding? I wouldn't miss this for the world."
More players spawned into the town square of the first city, the «Town of Beginnings», as official service began at 1PM, 13:00 Aincrad Standard Time – the same as JST. They were all cheering and whistling as even more players spawned in, and a great amount of us turned to face the outside of the castle, where fireworks shot up from below the clouds, and burst at our altitude, in full view.
That was what an achievement like this needed. The successful launch of a virtual reality MMORPG using FullDive brain-computer interface technology had to be celebrated, as it made its mark in the history books as the start of a new era of gaming.
That was what we had in our hands. Or rather, on our heads. The NerveGear had opened the door, with infinity on the other side.
And infinity was, still, only the beginning.
With that said – from here, beginning was the easy part.
You don't buy a game to not play it. So, it was time to do just that.
I had always kept my avatar 100% accurate to my real self. For that reason, I was proud to have lost the beer belly I had when I lived in Australia. I had never understood why it was always called a beer belly – I could never really drink straight alcohol, anyway; it always had to be infused or mixed with something else, like a soda or fruit essence.
But I wasn't thinking about that at all when I got back into the game. I immediately rushed out of the main plaza, down the streets and alleyways side-by-side with Kirito.
"I'm gonna beat all 100 floors first!" Kirito taunted me excitedly.
"No way, dude, you've gotta do the other quests around the floors to be able to!" I already planned ahead of time, to go for one.
"Well of course I'm gonna do some of them, but I'll still beat it faster!" Really, though?
"Well while you do an Any%, I'm going for a 100% speedrun!"
"There's too much in the game for that!" Okay, he was right about that.
"Hey, bros! Wait up!" Well, that wasn't either of us.
Kirito stopped, and then I skidded to a halt on my heels before turning back to him with a small step, as a magenta-haired man with a headband caught up to us.
"W-What's up?" Kirito asked, as the man briefly panted from running.
"You two act like you know your way around here," the man answered with an observation, "You were in the beta test, weren't you?"
"Uh. Yeah." My friend answered, and I nodded silently as well.
"Cool! Today's my first day." He further approached us, landing a hand on Kirito's shoulder. "So, could you give me some tips on the lower floors?"
"Yeah, I don't know if..." Kirito's uncomfortable response was interrupted at the moment of his hesitation.
"Aw, please, I'm beggin' ya!" The man whined, hands together as he spoke, before pointing to himself with his thumb to introduce himself. "Look, my name's Klein. Good to meet ya."
Kirito regained his calm, slight smile. "Alright. I'm Kirito."
"Well, that's easily taken care of. Hope you pick it up quick, Klein!"
Kirito turned in my direction as I darted away, upon him becoming pre-occupied. "Wait, come on!"
I couldn't help but chuckle as I made my way northwest from the Town of Beginnings. While we conversed with Klein, I had sent Kirito a friend request, and he accepted it. I now had him in my contacts for when he could let me know that he'd finished teaching Klein. But for the time being, I opted to head for another settlement on the western side of the floor.
On the way there, however, there were a number of expected battles – monsters in the environment would be found along the roads, but I would face a lot more, due to cutting across the grassy hills. Typical stubborn me, I loved taking shortcuts at every opportunity, as I travelled in as straight a line toward the village as I could.
The Dire Wolves found this way went down in one strike, but only if you knew what to strike with.
In Sword Art Online, regular swings of a weapon didn't really do that much damage. It was still worthwhile in a pinch, but for the most part, players would use «Sword Skills». These were the true 'primary attack' in the game, similar to Pokémon Mystery Dungeon.
Each weapon type – curved swords, rapiers, scythes, axes, hammers, straight-bladed swords, and further divided by the number of hands for which the weapon was made – had its own set of Sword Skills to be used. While any weapon could be wielded at any time, a weapon type's Sword Skills can only be used if the player has the weapon type's «Skill» assigned to a skill slot. Each player would begin the game with two slots available, and all skills increase in proficiency to 1000.
For example, I had «Blade Throwing» and «One-Handed Curved Blade». While I could wield a curved sword without any hassle, I needed its related skill in order to execute its Sword Skills. Similarly, any player could plainly throw a simple projectile, but there were many Sword Skills available to enhance the throwing ability nonetheless. They weren't practical, but some use could be made of them.
As I had no money to start with, I only had my basic curved sword, given to me by default when I assigned the relevant skill. I couldn't even buy the cheapest, tackiest throwing knives, or the narrow throwing picks normally available from the beginning.
However, any object small enough to be viable as a throwing weapon – even if it wasn't the most effective or practical – could suffice for throwing, and it would function with Throwing Skills. And so, most of my time spent on the road was for gathering up rocks. They didn't do as much and were not as aerodynamic, but it would suffice for a blunt hit.
What ended up happening between each use of «Reaver», the basic curved blade attack, would be the repeated process of holding a rock in a throwing stance, allowing the projectile to glow with the sign of an activation sequence, then forcing myself out of the stance to make the assistance system carry my arm in the throwing arc that delivered many times more force than I would have with an unassisted throw.
The basic move for Blade Throwing was plainly called «Single Shot», which made me assume there were ways to have the skill assist in throwing multiple projectiles at once. That seemed plausible enough with thinner blades like picks, but I could not imagine throwing many throwing knives with only one hand. Unless there was some ridiculous Throwing Skill that used two hands…
Most of the time, when I was throwing rocks, I had enough Dire Wolves around me, that I had to mostly concentrate on kiting their movement, in order to minimize their opportunities to attack. I went out of my way to only throw rocks at ones I had already hit, as one Reaver was enough to take out an entire bar of their HP.
I did, however, maintain the direction toward Horunka Village as I thinned out the wolf population. Nothing was going to slow me down on the way there. Not even the whines and whimpers of angry canines as I got better and better at hitting their eyes with my rocks. I would have been a lot less coordinated if not for the strong hash that I ate prior to logging in – keeping my reflexes sharp and senses precise. This would not be true if I were using my real body.
Much of my early prowess came from mastering my usage of prescription drugs late into the beta test of the game. I was incredibly grateful to Dr. Harbinger for having pushed so damn hard for the legalization of medical cannabis in Japan – there were too many issues with my mind for me to function as a regular human being without it. I truly perceived it as the only effective medication for autism overall, as nothing else had ever even made a noticeable change for me, even with accidental overdoses.
Once I arrived in Horunka, I quickly ran up to the weapon shop – only to then find my body pinning another to the door. Leaning my head away, I realized I had managed to wedge my hand behind her head, and I had caught her shoulder with my other. "Ahh, sorry."
The young woman shoved me back as her face reddened. "Thanks for keeping my head from hitting the door, at least."
I nodded with a blush of my own, before then blinking. "Wait… Sarako?"
It was another beta tester. She was dressed in the default, shoulderless feminine tunic here, but for most of the beta, this woman had worn a lavish, short maiden dress with a flowing cape.
"Ah, SAUER! What a surprise." Sarako stepped away from the door so that I could get by. "What brings you all the way here so soon?"
"I'm here to get my damn sword," I chuckled as I leaned against the frame, "So, are you here just to spite me this time?"
Sarako shook her head with a smile. "Honestly, I was aiming for that quest, too. But I feel bad for what happened in the beta, so… I'm gonna tag along to help you do it first."
I couldn't help but smile as I placed a hand on her head. "You don't need to do that." I then sighed with a step inside. I bought a brown leather half-coat, equipped it, and went back outside again to find my way to the house where the quest was – only to see Sarako waiting there.
"You're really serious about this, huh?" I rolled my eyes as I passed by her, and stepped up to the door of the house. "It's not a big deal."
"It is," she pouted as she shoved herself off of the fence, "The way you spoke of the reward is more than enough indication that you're still salty."
"Fine, fine," I groaned as I opened the door, looking back at her, "But shut up about it after."
Sarako didn't answer as I continued into the house. The first thing in front of me, was a kitchen, and the NPC woman I needed to see was stirring a pot. The gloomy, fake smile on her mature, wizened face befit the tag of «Village Missus», as she turned to face me.
"Good afternoon, journeying swordsman. You must be tired – I do wish to offer you some food, but I do not have any at the moment. All I can give, is a single cup of water or so."
"That's enough for me." I enunciated the words clearly for the system. 'That's fine' or 'Yes' would be enough of a response to progress the conversation, but this was an opportunity where I could talk like I talk – a sense of roleplay, for lack of better terms. Don't mind me, a more polite phrase than the two shorter ones, was too far in the direction of declining the drink.
I sat down as the NPC poured water from a jug into an old-looking cup, and set it down on the table. Immediately, I took the cup and gulped down the water. She gave a slight smile, and turned towards the pot. Something was simmering, but no food being given was a hint. After a moment, I heard the steady sound of a child's cough from a room on the other side of another door, followed by the missus' shoulders seeming to fall in despair. After a few seconds, a gold '?' had appeared above the lady's head, indicating a quest was available.
"Something wrong?" One of many phrases used to accept quests, followed by the '?'blinking. The missus turned towards me again, explaining the quest as the child continued to cough.
"Actually, journeying swordsman, my daughter is stricken with a severe illness," she began, as the coughing persisted in the background, "Market medicines, of which there are a few in the pot, do not work. What is sure to work, however, is medicine made from the ovule of dangerous plants in the forest to the west. I could not face such a threat myself, and the plants rarely bloom, so I cannot get what I need. On the other hand, I do have a sword, passed down in my family, to offer to a swordsman who could get it for me."
It was necessary to listen to the entire synopsis of the quest in order to progress it. I had to listen patiently as her daughter's coughs continued in the background of her speech. Once her speech had finished, the quest log on the left side of my HUD updated to show the quest.
I rose to my feet, and walked over to the door. "Keep that pot simmering, I'll be back soon." The line was unnecessary, but it added to the roleplay factor of a FullDive VR game. I left the house to take on my first quest in the full release of SAO.
Outside, Sarako pushed herself away from a wooden fence, and began to move toward the door. However, as I stepped aside for her, it abruptly closed behind me.
"What?" I was as confused as Sarako sounded. The momentum of the door's slam had flipped a previously-unseen panel on the door, to show a sign that read: "Residents have their hands full. Please check back at 13:50 tomorrow."
The beta tester tilted her head as she looked at me. "They can't be serious."
I shrugged. "Plenty of MMOs have cooldowns for a quest before it can be taken again."
"But server-wide, making it so only a single player can take it?!"
"I know, I've never seen this before," I grunted as I shoved myself off the wall, "I did suggest to add cooldown to quests, but I meant a player-by-player cooldown."
"I imagine you did," she groaned as she passed in front of me, "But whatever, let's just see what happens when you finish it."
I nodded as I followed her out of town. "It is ridiculous. But thank you for joining me, regardless."
"It's the least I can do, after the fiasco in the beta." Sarako smiled again as she walked on ahead.
I understood if she may have felt guilty about what happened, but she didn't need to bring it up as much as she did. I probably could have let myself forget about it if I never saw her again after I had accidentally pinned her to the door of the shop.
She referred to our mutual attempts to complete the quest that I had just taken from the NPC lady that I just spoke to – «Secret Medicine of the Forest». This same quest was the first time I had encountered her in the beta, roughly a week or two into the testing period.
When I had arrived in the forest to the west of the village that day, not only was Sarako there – but multiple other players arranged in a strategic pattern around her on all sides. Furthermore, not only were most of them male, but a handful were a little too honest with their avatars.
It was only when I was closer, and could properly see the full formation, that I noticed the other players were all facing away from the woman in the middle, though they would glance back at her every so often. Though they showed no malice toward her at this time, I had to imagine that their intentions in the long run were less than savory. But she would humor their attempts to get close.
In the present, Sarako and I arrived in the woods. "You had a level yet?" Weird way for her to ask, I thought.
"I've barely fought anything above Level 1." I drew my blade upon spotting my target. The enemies had red cursors over their heads – the darker the red, the higher their level was than yours. Frenzy Boars, likely the enemy type with which Kirito was teaching Klein how to play, had a pure red cursor when facing a Level 1 player like myself. By the time I finish this quest, they would have a light pink cursor, indicating that they would yield negligible XP to a higher-level player.
The cursor of the Little Nepenthes I could now see after passing around a tree, was a magenta or a similarly light reddish purple, as its level was 3 – presented as 'a threat' to me. If an enemy were so high of a level that it would be genuinely impossible for a player to defeat it, that enemy's cursor would be a dark crimson, like dried or highly oxygen-exposed blood. Of course, the game didn't account for calculating the approximate power of a party – it could only show an individual player their chances of defeating a monster on their own.
This Nepenthe simply had two leaves on top of its head – no flower. Being plants, they had no eyes, meaning that sneak attacks were impossible. And as the Nepenthes were also quest enemies, their cursors were also bordered thinly in yellow. I was far back enough that «Reaver» could be safely activated and executed before it could attack – so I did exactly that. As the Sword Skill took the user straight forward on a horizontal path, it was particularly effective for striking the Nepenthes' weak point of the stem between the pitcher and the legs.
The fact that the plant had to turn around made up for the post-motion delay, and I could move my body again by the time it closed the distance. I promptly turned around, driving my blade into the same spot again. The Nepenthe let loose a howl of what may have been pain, but quickly re-focused on me as I pulled my sword back. A new instinct came over me as the Nepenthe thrust its right vine forward – a stunt only possible with a lean body like mine, and honed athleticism from IRL.
I performed a limbo under the vine, and twisted my upper body to the side so my sword could reach the stem again, jabbing it in as it howled again. As it reeled back its vine, so too did I with my blade, before slicing through the stem as the enemy's HP bar ran empty, followed by the pitcher body freezing with a blue tint over it, and bursting into polygonal shards.
In the time it took to kill that one enemy, Sarako killed another. She was having an easier time with the «One-Handed Sword» skill, as she had access to «Horizontal», a simple, straight-across slash. Sword skills were separated by the weapon type associated with them, and One-Handed Sword was for the standard straight-length swords. At Level 1, you only got two Skill slots, and the weapon skills were what allowed you to use Sword Skills associated with your weapon. I had chosen to start with a curved sword because it would give me a chance to level up the skill proficiency – I would move onto levelling up One-Handed Sword once I had a slot to assign it, which would be at Level 6.
The only reason I could continue using Reaver around multiple enemies, was the presence of Sarako. With attention split between us, I didn't have to worry about flying past my target, right into the middle of four or five monsters. That aside, we were currently working 2 Nepenthes a minute, total.
The Nepenthe had another attack – a corrosive fluid spit which was telegraphed by a slight inflation of its pitcher. This attack was especially effective on bronze equipment, which was already less durable than the default starting equipment, despite the higher stats. Otherwise, it was just a more involved attack to dodge than the vines, as it was important to maintain your gear, and we would soon have a trypophobia-inducing quantity of holes burned into our leather armor. But that was alright for the time being – it was still somewhat fresh.
And it ended up being more than worthwhile. Sarako pointed out a shocking sight to me, as she proceeded to fight another regular Nepenthe.
Only the fourth of these plants that we'd seen in official service… And we already had one with a flower on its head. And I'm still not close to Level 2. How did this happen?!
Back in the beta, when I got to this forest, her guild of white knights was mowing down Nepenthes left and right, just to get her through that quest. Many of them even had already beaten the quest themselves in the days before. And those neckbeards wouldn't even let me fight a single pitcher.
The image stayed in my head as I fought the flower-headed variant in the present. Seeing how they screwed me over, for hours, hogging the woods for their 'queen'. I was surprised she didn't stick around the Town of Beginnings for a bit today, to see if any of her simps would show up. It wasn't like she didn't revel in the way they pampered her. She was 100% the early 2010s' definition of an 'e-girl'.
She even laughed at my shrieks of rage, each time they killed me. She spoke in as condescending a tone to me, as she did to them. But then she also laughed at them when I overcame their idiocy.
There was another variant of the Nepenthe – one with a fruit on its head. Though they could spawn at the same rate as the flower-headed ones, the flower also hid a similar fruit that would grow to match them, if left to wilt. If it wasn't enough that the quest-relevant variant could become the fruit bearing variant, the fruit itself was particularly aggravating. Even for the other Nepenthes.
Cutting open this fruit would release a strong smell that would attract all Nepenthes on this side of the forest, drawing great numbers upon unfortunate players. With that in mind, eventually, one of Sarako's followers positioned himself near the entrance of the forest, and would seek out and split the Nepenthes' fruit at the first sight of my return.
It was after he'd done this for the third time, that he began to head back to the rest of the group, all of whom were still able to see me from where I was, surrounded by swarming monsters.
And that was when they saw it. One of the Nepenthes attracted by the fruit, was the one they were looking for, all that time. It had spawned in the fruit's pungent range, and headed straight to me, bringing the flower with it. Their jaws dropped when I got the item. And Sarako cackled mockingly, when I passed by them to give the flower to her. I stopped caring about getting the quest for myself. I just wanted to spite those losers. It was the most satisfying thing I had done in the beta test.
Back in the present, I took a deep breath as I picked up the flower, and put it in my belt pouch.
"I think you've earned it for yourself, this time." A giggle came from behind as Sarako returned her sword to her scabbard. "After all you'd done, I still can't believe how it went down in the end."
"I had simply had enough," I plainly admitted, putting away my sword as well, "Especially when the whole trope is mostly on Twitch now, and not in the games themselves."
"Yeah, well," she sighed as she took a second to stretch, "I guess the trend will never die."
"I suppose it really won't," I chuckled briefly, before taking a deep breath as I began walking back to Horunka with her, "That said, why are you alone now?"
She turned her head toward me for a moment, and then glanced down. "Well, after today, I've seen the independent experience. And in the beta," she chuckled softly, "I had the experience of—"
"At last! Here you are!"
Sarako and I stopped in the path as we mentally processed what was in front of us. Standing about ten feet away, was a lean, fit, thick-armed man with a smooth, clean-shaven face, and a fedora.
That last detail told us how much of a lie the rest of his avatar was, in regards to the player himself. Either this was a kid trying to be developed and mature, or a man-child with body image issues.
"How has it come to this, m'lady?" Alright, definitely the latter. "How does so much change in just over two months, that you've resorted to doing half the work yourself?"
I groaned with a roll of my eyes, audibly enough for the guy to then turn to me, and point his virtual finger in my direction. "You! I remember you! You made a complete joke of our entire guild!"
I shrugged with a sigh. "The game made a complete joke of you. I'm just the messenger."
"There wasn't much you or he could have done. The fruit was broken, he had to fight his way out, then the flower dropped." I'd never heard Sarako speak with a tone that wasn't smug before.
"You're defending this show-off?" The man turned to me again. "So, you've brainwashed the poor maiden in just a single hour of game service! You don't deserve this kind of attention!"
I couldn't help but crack up for a moment. "Are you really so wrapped up in the need for female acknowledgement that you won't pay attention to the identity of anyone else?"
"Right? Honestly," Sarako sighed as she leaned back against a tree, "It's like he doesn't know how much hard work goes into recreating the likeness of a celebrity like SAUER, just for a VR game."
Uh-huh. A likeness. I nodded at Sarako's comment as I took a couple steps forward. "I didn't even really aim for her attention. She's just willing to own up to a mistake."
"Unbelievable!" The simp hastily dragged his menu down in a huff. "That is a vile comment on her sense of judgement, and you must pay dearly for it!"
His hand became still when a pop-up interrupted his navigation of the interface. In the time it took this creep to whine, I had sent him the duelling request that he was preparing to send to me.
"Go for it, mate," I jested, glancing over at Sarako before looking to him again, "I'm still getting my sword after this."
Without hesitation, the simp chose the obvious option – Total Loss mode.
"This is excessive as hell," Sarako yawned as she sat on the ground against the tree, "But I guess it's some extra entertainment for the day."
The preparation timer counted down from 60 seconds, and we each drew our swords. Me with my curved blade, him with his rapier. Maybe he was also roleplaying the 'duel' in the traditional sense.
Our names displayed above the timer. SAUER vs. Kora. I didn't expect western Nice Guy Syndrome when I came to Japan, but here we were. 3, 2, 1…
Right as the duel began, we ran up to each other as he drew his hand back – «Linear», the standard rapier Sword Skill. I slid under his arm and activated Reaver. Just as he turned back towards me, I released my position to execute the skill and sail past him, leaving a glowing red gash on his torso.
He had to turn around again just to run up behind me in my post-motion delay, but I regained my movement just as he went for a plain thrust, and simply dropped myself to the ground.
I swung at his ankles and he lifted his leg too hastily, losing his balance and toppling over. This gave me time to step back and activate Reaver, executing it just as he stood up, and slicing him again.
Wobbling on his heels, Kora stumbled back to catch himself, before turning and activating Linear again, as I then turned to face him. I dropped to one knee, leaned my head to the side, and let his blade pass over my shoulder as his chest slammed right onto my blade. I opted to leave it there, allowing both of my hands to grip his arm and fling him to the ground, face-down. With the blade in his chest, and the hilt pressed to the ground, I then proceeded to stomp on his upper back, pushing the blade deeper into his torso as his HP fell to zero. The duelling window popped up to declare me the winner, as I kicked Kora onto his back and pulled my sword back out.
The simp groaned as he slowly sat upright, while his avatar gained a blue tint from head to toe, and gradually grew brighter. "Damn it! This isn't over…!"
"Sure, man. Sure, it isn't."
I thought nothing of this victory, as his avatar shattered into polygonal shards. Whatever, he should find me again in a couple of hours, I thought. Sarako applauded me as I put away my sword. "Well, shall we get you done with that quest?"
I nodded with a smile, and we began walking back to Horunka. "I assume that the type of guys you were getting attention from, was a factor in playing solo this time?"
"Well, I wouldn't say I'm solo," she admitted, walking ahead of me, "I'm just gonna try to find more opportunities to get away from my guild."
I shrugged. "That's fair."
Nothing else was said until we got back to the NPC's house. I struck the knocker, and the NPC inside slowly opened the door. "Oh, come in." The woman looked back at Sarako, and she smiled as she headed off. I shrugged and went inside, as the NPC closed the door. She had a gold '!' symbol over her head, indicating a quest was in progress.
I took the «Little Nepenthe's Ovule» from my belt pouch, and handed it to her. At that moment, the missus' face lit up, seeming to shed 20 years off the entirety of her visual representation as she took the ovule, babbling gratitude as my quest log updated. She gently placed the ovule into the pot, before stepping over to a large chest against the south wall of the room and opening the lid.
From inside the chest, she took out a long sword in a red scabbard. The blade itself was colored a desaturated pale purple, but despite its appearance, it had a fair significance separating it from the initial equipment. She brought it before me, holding it in both hands with more words of gratitude.
I gave a simple "Thank you," as I accepted the sword. I could equip it, but I didn't have a slot for the skill that would allow me to put it to good use. A golden light surrounded me for a moment, along with a short fanfare. The quest XP ended up pushing me to Level 2, rather than any meaningful progress being made from fighting monsters. I pulled up my status tab to assign my three attribute points to the only available stats to increase this way – 1 into Strength, and 2 into Agility. All other parameters were handled through different, unseen mechanics.
The young mother continued to stir the simmering pot on the stove as I navigated the menu, and I decided to find out if there was more to see. I watched the NPC take a wooden cup from the shelves, and using a ladle, she filled the cup with the simmering mixture in the pot. Right, so we've ruled out stiff-looking idle animations.
Holding the cup in both hands with significantly more care than the sword, the mother then carried it over to another door, opening it and stepping through into a dimly lit room. Assuming there was possibly an optional cutscene, I walked over and entered the room myself.
Inside was a small bedroom. Dresser by the wall, bed by the window, a small chair by the bedside. Laying on the bed, was a girl about seven or eight years of age. With the light of the sun from the window, the paleness of her face was very clear to me. Thin neck, bony shoulders peeking from the sheets – this illness would surely be terminal if not for the medicine. Her NPC tag read «Agatha».
Noticing her mother, the girl's eyelids lifted slightly, and then she turned her head to look at me. And after a moment, the edges of her lips lifted to form a faint smile.
With her right hand, the mother propped up the girl's back, and she immediately leaned forward in a coughing fit, her light brown braids shaking weakly on her back, cushioned by her white negligee. Upon realizing that she was dressed with an expectation of solitude to a degree, I had a moment to second-guess my presence in the room. But I kept my feet planted.
"Agatha. Here," the mother said, gently stroking Agatha's back with her right hand as she sat in the chair by the bedside, "The traveling swordsman got some medicine for you from the forest. If you drink this, you'll get better for sure."
With her left hand, the mother carefully pushed the cup into the girl's small hands.
"...Okay." Agatha nodded as she accepted the cup with a cute voice, and gulped it down. This kind of medicine wasn't the type in RPGs that immediately remove any history of the illness' effects, this seemed more like a general medicine that would simply allow the recovery to properly begin.
As such, while some color did return to her face, she still looked pretty sick. She returned the empty cup to her mother, and returned her gaze to me, with a grin that kind of stunned me for a moment.
"Thank you, big brother."
"Haha, okay." That's a new one, I thought. When did video games implement clan mentality? I saved a life, and then suddenly, I become a brother? I couldn't help but smile at the idea.
"Hm? What is it, big brother?" Could she see something else change about my expression?
"Ah, nothing," I hastily answered, rubbing the back of my head, "I'm just… flattered."
I could swear I heard a small giggle as I turned back to the door. A small chuckle escaped me as I glanced back at her. "Please get well. Do it for your 'big brother'."
I then headed out of the house, rolling my eyes at myself. This was the last place I expected to hear "Onii-chan," especially directed at me.
I quickly shook off the cringe of the west, and went off to the east side of the village.