A/N: Next week will be the final chapter of Aincrad Interim, and its slot will be taken by its sequel, another month after the last chapter goes up. Said sequel will not be a Slice of Life, at least not primarily – I've been made painfully aware that I cannot write one to save my life. As for Virtual Immigration here, I'm pretty sure I can get only another 2-3 chapters out of SAO Progressive 7&8 material, before I'll have to take a break on this work for preparing what comes next. I have four pages for Chapter 28 right now.

Also, FFN's analytics are still broken. If you have followed or favourited in September or after, I cannot see it – and Chapter 26 still shows zero views.

"I have to admit that your cooperation is appreciated."

I nodded with a chuckle at Kysarah's comment. "It's certainly worthwhile. Thank you for being a part of a bigger picture than the Sanctuary."

Kysarah returned a nod, before turning away. "May we do business again, soon."

She spread her arms out, and was consumed by another sandy whirlwind, disappearing into the swirl as it dispersed a second later. Just another few seconds after that, my previous companions returned.

January 4th, 2023 – about 17:45 AST. With Valkyrie bearing witness, the Fallen Elf Adjutant, Kysarah, and I, came to an agreement which benefitted all present at the time she had appeared to us. This included myself, Kirito, Asuna, my guild's Dark Auxiliary party led by Kumiko, and all four members of Qusack, as well as Valkyrie, and Kysarah herself; technically, it also included Valkyrie's dark elf knight companion Ranfilo, who was still restrained in the cave during the conversation outside, but was now free and had been convinced by Valkyrie's deceptive description of events.

"So, what did she ask you?" asked Asuna, anxiously.

"Let's go back to Galey as I answer," I chuckled again as I began walking, the others following closely behind me, "For one thing, Kysarah took a whole cube of that desert boss with her."

"So she could get back to her base?" Kirito inquired, "Surely that wasn't the first thing to happen?"

I shook my head with a smile. "She's able to put up with Poncho Man for as long as we need her to, and she wants to see his face when he finally learns of her betrayal. Of course, she understands that should he find a way to discover that fact before we're done with him, she can settle for finishing him off when the time comes – that is, if we clean up his crew before he exceeds her in power."

"Surely that simple of an agreement wouldn't take an hour and a half of talk?" Kumiko pondered.

"Oh, of course not," I laughed awkwardly, "She and Val are already on pretty good terms thanks to a skill we're going to pick up after dinner, and as a result, I now have a similar affinity with her as an individual, as opposed to the Fallen as a whole. She'll help us find Poncho Man's followers as well, shortening the time we need to keep him around, and will provide us resources to counteract any other summoned traitors – Poncho Man's or others."

Valkyrie nodded as she passed ahead of me, making sure Ranfilo was out of earshot.

"She'll continue to play the part of an obstacle to keep the dark elves from suspecting that we're interacting positively with Fallen at all. Also, SAUER discovered another bonus to the talwar replica which I didn't tell him about."

"Well technically, she told me to check the properties myself," I clarified in response, "It gave me guaranteed proficiency increases when clashing with Katana skills. So, part of the deal included me wearing out the talwar against Kysarah. Val's quest log updated when it broke, so I gave it to her, and once we're done at Galey, we'll all head back down to the kobold village."

Kirito blinked. "What are you going to use, if the weapons we know of have broken?"

I chuckled once more, pulling out a weapon of luster with Quick Change.

"The Anneal Blade that Chumi obtained to join my guild. I want to see what kind of saber I can get from its metal. Though, I'll wait to see what Valkyrie gets for the talwar replica."

"Okay— wait," Kirito interrupted himself, "You got Kysarah to agree to a harmless sparring session?"

I nodded with a smile. "Weaver, Greaver, Cleaver, Treble Scythe – I managed to find a balance for executing them all across the span of a minute; giving time for Kysarah to meet each with a Katana skill, of course. Whenever we accidentally hit each-other, we'd get some potions into us and resume our faux-duel. Sure, we missed each-other's swords a bunch of times, but we made up for it through the hour, until my talwar replica broke after over 160 successful clashes."

Asuna pouted, as if jealous of the fast skill boosting opportunity. "So, your One-Handed Curved Blade proficiency is…?"

I checked my menu with a grin. "343. I got a couple more cooldown-shortening mods along the way."

"Okay, what about Sword Skills?" Kirito asked behind me as we began walking back to Galey.

"Let's see… I like Lesion; one up, one down, it can cause bleeding, and I can adjust its aim to hit two targets if I need it to. Hmm… Honestly, that's the only one that appealed to me, of the ones I tried."

"Alright. Well, hopefully something interests you at 350," the boy in black chuckled.

"I think we'll give up on the elf quest for now," Gindo announced on behalf of Qusack, "If we run the risk of running into others as powerful as Kysarah, we can't negotiate with them."

"After Galey, we'll be going back to Stachion anyway," I replied to him, opening my map interface to show him the positions of my guild on the seventh floor, "You can join Chumi's bunch in Volupta and gamble with them. The prizes you can obtain should get you back on track."

Lazuli shrugged. "I suppose we could give it a try. But again, we don't carry much money…"

"I'll get Chumi to give you a handful of the casino coins."

"Oh, thank you!" the only female member of Qusack giggled, "We'll stick around with them until you catch up with us. I'm sure we could get something for you too, by then."

I chuckled and shook my head. "Unnecessary, but appreciated."

When we got back to Castle Galey, our reward for saving it and its Spirit Tree, was rather modest; the three parties who returned were each given a vial of the Droplets of Villi, allowing us to get back to Stachion quicker – the vial was given to each party's 'leader': Kumiko for Dark Aux, me for Kirito and Asuna, and Qusack let Valkyrie take theirs. We had dinner at six, and then crossed the north arm of Lake Talpha to reach Stachion.

"I asked Chumi to go back to Lexio, she'll meet you right as you go up," I told Qusack at the plaza.

"Okay. Thank you again for saving us," Gindo responded with a smile, "We'll do our best to keep luck on our side, so that we may repay you."

After a handshake, they went up to the seventh floor, and the rest of us went down to the Town of Beginnings once again, to cross the first floor and see the kobold chieftain again, which we did in the morning of January 5th, reaching her village around 9:30AM.

"Lady Viperhinge, we did it!" I announced as we entered her hut, "The seventh floor is open, with plenty of land to settle!"

Viperhinge grinned atop her bony throne. "I look forward to seeing it. I think we would like to keep it quiet, however. Is the guardian's chamber in the sixth-floor pillar empty, now?"

We all nodded, and I smiled. "What's the plan, once you're in there?"

Viperhinge hopped down to the floor. "We think a quiet, out-of-the-way place like the exit onto the seventh floor from the sixth pillar, is the perfect starting point for setting up another tiny village."

Two kobolds, a male and a female, walked into view, each with a hammer and a belt of metalwork tools keeping their rag pants up.

"Here are the smiths joining me there," the chieftain announced, "The male was the designated guardiansmith – he forged Illfang's axe and talwar, while Illfang forged his own nodachi. The female, on the other hand, was initially our only smith for arming the rest of us."

Kirito tilted his head. "Do you now have another smith to keep down here?"

She shook her head. "We plan to send arms back down in bulk. In the meantime…"

Viperhinge returned to her throne, and whistled with a finger each at the edges of her mouth. From the entrance of the hut, a guard walked up to the pelt laying in front of the throne, and rolled up the edge facing us, revealing a taxidermized bear's head. The guard planted the head of her spear in the bear's forehead, and we heard a click.

The floor briefly rumbled, and the throne ascended atop a stone block, revealed to be hollow. Inside, there rest a large stone bowl, a glowing blue sphere fitting snugly within. And displayed inside of the sphere, was a very faint image of a kobold with a rolled-up Vendor's Carpet on its back, and a belt of thieves' tools.

"Stored within this Summoner's Orb, is a Ruin Kobold Plunderer. Deploy him in Illfang's chamber; we believe he kept most of his possessions in a hidden vault, including his smithing journal. And on the way up, you may as well speak to the Troopers throughout the pillar – you have shown yourselves to be excellent communicators, so I think you can get them onboard."

I took that as an indication that we had unlocked the skill spoken of by Valkyrie, and chuckled.

"We'll give it a try. It's the least we can do after the fun I had with the talwar you gave Valkyrie."

"Ah, that reminds me," the just-mentioned beta tester giggled, materializing the talwar replica based on Illfang's neglected original, "This scale recreation has been worn to its limit."

Viperhinge grinned again as she leaned on her elbow. "Excellent work! In the meantime, I have been learning to wield the original, attempting to use it like a nodachi. Once we're set up on the seventh floor, I hope to use a true katana, one easier to use with two hands. Join these others in helping the plunderer find Illfang's journal, and we will create a free weapon for each of you, once we have the metal for them, and the forge set up on the seventh floor."

Valkyrie nodded with a chuckle. "Sounds good to me!"

Taking the orb with us, we left town and made our way toward the first floor's tower. Along the way, most of us looked at our skill lists, and most of us expressed disappointment in having full skill slots. Luckily, I still had another Crystal Bottle of Kales'Oh, in which I chose to store One-Handed Sword, before assigning the new skill, «Humanoid Relations».

"Hm. Guys, check this out," I asked of the players with me, and they gathered behind me to see my skills, as my new skill's proficiency began shooting up like the Meditation skill did yesterday morning after skipping the initial acquisition quest, and completing the Awakening quest instead.

Gradually, Humanoid Relations climbed to 50, unlocking the Demihuman Interpretation mod, then to 100 for Elven Formality, and finally to 150, unlocking the unexpected Fallen Elf Favor mod.

"Wait… So, the game does intend for positive interactions with the Fallen?" gasped Kirito.

Valkyrie nodded. "All the quests I've done for them, have only seemed to give me affinity for Kysarah. She's the only one who gives me the time of day – and her interactions with Poncho Man are strictly business, so he is definitely only with them for the PK tools."

"Aren't you worried he'll realize Kysarah likes you, but gives him the bare minimum?" Asuna asked.

The PK-mole chuckled. "What's he gonna do? Keep Kysarah from protecting me? She's never known respect from humans the way SAUER and I have shown to her."

I chuckled nervously with a nod. "Y-Yeah, in just an hour, you've given me a month of your work…"

We reached the tower around 2PM, and managed to gather nine roaming kobolds inside, as we led them up to Illfang's chamber. I materialized the orb from my inventory, and gingerly set it down onto the floor before Illfang's throne. The orb shone and burst, spawning a Ruin Kobold Plunderer, just as depicted in the faint image within the orb.

Silently, the plunderer removed the Vendor's Carpet from his back, and unrolled it on the floor, with two chests emerging atop it. He opened them both, revealing two more orbs in each. One by one, he lifted the orbs from the chests, and rolled them across the floor, until four Swamp Kobold Architects had spawned – just as red as other kobolds, with building tools on their belts, and visible abs above their pants.

The plunderer gave orders to all present kobolds in their tongue, and they all spread out around the walls of the chamber, knocking along them with their tools and seeming to listen for how the knock sounded on the wall. Meanwhile, Valkyrie approached the plunderer, as he looked up to her. It was then that she materialized one of her orbs containing a Ruin Kobold Sentinel, and held it toward him as if to offer it.

The plunderer scratched his stubbly chin, and then took the orb with both hands, before setting it down on the floor, and spawning the Sentinel within. Just like it would have been with her, its cursor was as yellow as the others in the room.

Suddenly, the Sentinel ran up the steps to the throne, and slipped behind it. Valkyrie began to walk toward the pale blue stone chair to investigate, only to be shaken down the steps by a brief rumble, followed by the short pillar from which the throne appeared to be carved, slowly lifting itself out of the raised platform; inside the hollow space revealed, was a closed leather-bound book.

The Sentinel hopped down from the lifted throne, as the plunderer walked up to it and stared at the book in the hollow pedestal. Lifting one side just slightly, he seemed to peer beneath the book, and whistled to the other kobolds. They moved inward near the throne, around us.

I looked around at the Ruin Kobold Troopers, and Swamp Kobold Architects, as the Sentinel waved to Valkyrie and stepped past us to form up with the rest of the kobolds.

"Seems the plunderer expects a trap," the woman with more proper experience in the Humanoid Relations skill suggested, "Let's keep an eye on the walls and floors."

The kobolds, turned away from us, drew their weapons, and then the plunderer retrieved the book from the pedestal. Where the book lay, there was now a visible stone button, which popped up without the weight of the book.

Multiple wall panels shifted, and many Summoner's Orbs spilled from behind them, spawning new armored kobold enemies – one type was human-height and muscly, called Ruin Kobold Hefters, and the other kobold-height, chunkier types were called Ruin Kobold Hosses. Both these types wielded two-handed hammers, and their cursors were appropriately red; loyal to Illfang, to the very end.

It was easy for us players to reach the enemy kobolds over the heads of the kobolds allied with us, steamrolling them as the quest likely expected only a single party of six. A couple Troopers from the tower floors had been killed, but their morale seemed intact as they looked to the Sentinel for his support, while the plunderer sat on the steps before the throne, reading the book.

We found some small, low-quality gems and some bags of Cor in the spaces where the orb traps had been kept, as well as a stack of steel ingots, an anvil, and a sword that appeared to be a nodachi by human scale, but was short enough that it was likely a wakizashi for Illfang. All of these things were loaded into the plunderer's chests, and the Vendor's Carpet was rolled up, then given to Valkyrie. Reluctantly, she strapped it to her back, and sighed.

"Right… What's next?" she asked the plunderer, as if they could understand each-other that well.

The plunderer simply pointed up the stairs to the exit, leading up to the second floor. Clearly, he was directing us to take this loot to the seventh-floor exit of the sixth floor's tower. He also turned back to Valkyrie again, and handed her a rectangular block of indigo color, sitting in a silver base with a fancy pattern of the metal appearing to crawl up about an inch along the length of the book-sized object.

"A… Corridor Crystal?" Valkyrie questioned in confusion.

"Probably wants us to bind it in the Irrational Cube's chamber," Kumiko suggested from behind us, as Valkyrie accepted the crystal, "And then open the corridor back at the village for Viperhinge and the smiths to enter. They might have Vendor's Carpets they don't want to lug across the first floor."

The plunderer nodded, and handed me the book retrieved from under Illfang's throne.

"Very well, let's head up," I answered with a smile.

The plunderer remained behind with the Troopers and Sentinel, but the Architects accompanied us onto the second floor, into Urbus – where the human NPCs were unfamiliar with kobolds – and we teleported to Lexio on the seventh floor, then backtracked to the labyrinth exit. There, we bound the corridor destination, and then it was back to Lexio for dinner at 5PM. We chose Min's Eatery, where we ordered various rice dishes based on ones from all around Asia.

We finished around 5:30, and teleported to the Town of Beginnings, before trekking out to the Rata Plain and the wetland village in its center.

"Ah, you're back!" Viperhinge greeted us happily, "How did it go?"

"Corridor's bound," I answered with a chuckle, "You all ready to head up?"

"Well if you got the crystal, then the treasure must be on the carpet. Up we go, then!"

Under Kirito and Asuna, I saw Viperhinge, the male Ruin Kobold Guardiansmith, and female Swamp Kobold Fieldsmith, sliding into my party list. Valkyrie partied up with Kumiko's Dark Aux just in case the corridor's group targeting was off, and I lifted the crystal.

"Corridor Open."

The crystal crumbled, and a gate of light formed in front of us, and we stepped through.

On the other side, when we stepped out, was the Irrational Cube's chamber. Kirito, Asuna, myself, Valkyrie, all of Dark Aux… and the three kobolds who wanted to come here in the first place. Also present, were the four Swamp Kobold Architects we left here, who had already produced some drawings of their plans on a few scrolls.

Valkyrie laid out the Vendor's Carpet, and unrolled it to show Viperhinge the contents of the two chests atop it. Upon seeing into each, the kobold chieftain grinned.

"Looks like we have more than we need. Our smiths should be working in no time!"

The smiths also had their own carpets, which they unrolled in one corner of the room; they each possessed their own crude furnaces and anvils, as well as sets of shelves containing materials.

I then materialized the book found by the plunderer. "Oh, the plunderer found this; didn't say if he was sure it was the smithing journal you asked for."

Viperhinge swiftly nabbed the book from my hands, and flicked through a few pages, then nodded excitedly as she closed it.

"This is it! That is Illfang's smithing journal. Tell you what: each of you will get one free forge project from us – weapon, armor, what have you. You can come to us anytime you need it, whether from metal you bring us, or from some metal we'll reserve for this one time per person."

"When will the smiths be ready?" I asked, unsure if they could get going so soon after deploying their workshops like players could.

She glanced over to them, and smiled. "They can do something for you now – go ahead."

Through the Guardiansmith, I had my Anneal Blade turned into an ingot, and then I used that as the core for what I decided would be a saber – a weapon with the same shape as those of the Dark Elven Royal Guards of the Pagoda Knights Brigade.

"Are you sure you want to have this done by this kobold from the first floor?" Kirito asked, hesitant.

I couldn't help but chuckle as I confirmed my order in the menu. "He made Illfang's talwar, and it's holding up fine in Viperhinge's care. Why not?"

Kirito looked to Asuna, and she shrugged. I glanced back at Viperhinge, who was eagerly reading through the smithing journal, and then turned to watch the Guardiansmith make my saber.

He managed to apply 45 strikes to the metal before it morphed into the new saber, which had been labelled by the system with the name «Swampforge Kobold Saber». There were 12 enhancement attempts available on it.

We all thanked the kobolds, as our quest logs showed our completion of «Lord, the Irony», and we returned to Lexio around 10:15PM. At that point, we truly called it a night. Starting from the 6th tomorrow morning, we could finally focus our attention on the seventh floor of Aincrad.

We ate breakfast together, and then headed west to the twin exits with sculptures describing each road leading out. Then I noticed that Kiril's party of crystal hunters on Headwind Road were visible from the right exit leading to it.

"Look at them there," I pointed out to Asuna and Kumiko, the only non-beta players currently in my company, "Headwind Road is more difficult, indicated by this sculpture of the miserable man who is hunched over a cane, as though walking against the elements in a storm."

Kumiko nodded slowly. "Right. That's why you have the crystal-grabbing party there, hoping for high monster spawns, meaning more chances for a crystal to drop, right?"

"That's right," I answered as I pointed to the left exit's sculpture, of a decadently-dressed man, back arched and holding a large wine glass, "Tailwind Road is an easier path, but the challenge is more psychological than strictly a physical or stat-based hardship. I've already sent my clearing parties on this road, south to Volupta, two or three times the size of Lexio. There's a casino there, where Chumi and the other fourth-floor tourists hassled by Hafner of the DKB for the NPC gondola queue, will be spending the remainder of their game time, unless something more appropriate for a comfortable virtual life comes up on a higher floor. They'll stay in the guild because they still want to find ways to support us from the sidelines, and Chumi has also told me that she has Qusack there now."

Asuna blinked. "You've mentioned this casino a few times. You mean like a Vegas or Macau casino?"

I nodded with a chuckle. "That's right, the kind Japan would never have anytime soon. I've been to both of those places, and every casino in each. The trick is to know when you've actually gained, and only keep going until you're one loss away from being back to where you started. On the other hand, when you're losing consistently, never try to simply get even – you won't; just find one of the games which has even a faint element of skill. Half the beta testers who didn't learn that lesson, had simply dropped out altogether."

The fencer turned to Kirito. "Was it really that bad?"

Kirito grimaced at being confronted instead of me. "…By the time I decided to finally go to the eighth floor, I only had my sword left."

Asuna slowly turned to me. "And you?"

I shrugged. "I had experience from real casinos, as I'd just explained. I knew which games had some element of skill, no matter how vague. Oh, and I played a lot of other video games that had some casino games within them, such as Super Mario 64 DS, Pokémon, and Grand Theft Auto Online."

She tapped her foot on the ground impatiently. "And how did that work out for you?"

I chuckled and led us out the left exit. "Well, I got halfway to reaching the top prize. You can't get Cor back from your chips, but when you exchange chips for prizes, you can just sell the prizes anywhere else in Aincrad for a steep profit. And since this floor is in eternal summer, the beach pass gained just for winning 300 chips, was a big perk of sticking around. One Volcoin is 100 Cor, so the pass is valued at 30k, pretty much."

Asuna glanced north, as if considering avoiding the casino altogether. "You say that you got the pass from simply winning 300… Volcoins. Is that literal? Like, you get it for winning that much in the time you spend there?"

"That's right, you can't just buy 300 chips and then buy it," Kirito answered from beside me, "It's like a VIP prize, you could say."

I was about to say something else, but then drew my new saber at the sound of buzzing wings.

"Tailwind may have less monsters, but they're still on the tier of the floor. Keep on your toes!"

A 20-inch green circle flew over us, and then turned toward us in full view, with a horn almost as long as its body. Over the pale red cursor, the name read «Verdian Lancer Beetle».

"Verdian?" Asuna wondered aloud.

"Name of these plains," I answered as I activated Treble Scythe, "This first hit will be deflected by the armor on the head, prothorax, and wing sheaths, but the second and third spins will catch the thing from behind, and it flies at an angle that keeps its weak belly facing rearward."

I executed the skill as the beetle charged through the air, horn-first, and as I twirled toward it with a hard swing, my blade clinked off of its wing sheath, but as it passed by me, I pushed my arm further along the circle drawn by my sword, accelerating until it caught the rearmost edge of its belly, which caused the beetle to topple forward in the air, exposing the belly further for the final spin. I struck deeply into the weak point, hearing the same thick wham! sound indicating a critical hit, just like the effect heard in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with that game's interpretation of a critical hit.

The beetle fell to the ground, bounced, then froze in the air before shattering. I returned my saber to my hip, and looked at the yield popup. "Hm. Generous money and experience. All these drops are crafting materials, but those can be…"

Then, I materialized one of the drops: a rose-pink rectangular prism crystal with a silver base.

"What did I tell ya?" I chuckled as I showed it to them, "The crystal drops for all monsters are tenfold from the sixth floor's rate, from this floor up. This is the healing one – and I mean, all of your HP."

Kirito nodded with a smile. "There are two ways to use it. Either you tap the surface and then touch the 'Use' button, or you just hold it up and speak its command word – for this one, 'Heal'. And if you want to use it on someone other than yourself, simply touch them with your other hand as you say the command."

I put away the crystal with a grin. "I hope the crystal crew have a bunch more of these."

After a few more kinds of enemies, we reached Volupta around 7:15AM. The city sloped gently down to the left from our viewpoint, all the pure-white stucco houses arranged on descending levels. The larger dwellings had deep blue roofs, and at the southernmost point was a beach of white sand, with emerald-green water.

"It's like Santorini…" Asuna murmured between myself and Kirito.

"Santorini?" Kirito asked.

"A Greek island in the Aegean Sea," the fencer answered with a smile, "There's a town on that island called Oia, it looks just like this."

"Do they have anything like that?" I asked as I pointed to the other side of town, at a larger building looming over the town; an octagonal structure with a cobalt-blue roof, and two towers with conical tops on either side of the entrance side, like those on a palace.

Asuna slowly shook her head. "Not sure… But are Chumi and Qusack there?"

I nodded with a chuckle. "Volupta Grand Casino, open 24/7. The closer you get to it, the fancier and higher-class everything around you will be. That includes the restaurants and pubs."

The main street through the center of Volupta ran east to west, and all the places to eat were along this street; the luxury restaurant across from the casino itself was one which would charge Michelin prices for Michelin-size portions – if they offered Michelin-size portions; they did full plate meals like most other restaurants in town. To the north were the homes uptown, and the south was business.

Up the western staircase, there were sketchy item shops and pubs along the steps, like the back alley places in typical RPGs. Then a building with bright lights, triangular red and black flags topping a pair of minarets, and a navy-blue dome, came into view over the stairs.

In front of Volupta Grand Casino, was a delightful plaza. It was smaller than the square at the center of town with a fountain full of coins, but the ground tiles were arranged to form complex mosaics, plus the businesses along the sides of this plaza were especially refined. And the statues around the entrance to the casino, gave the impression that it was truly the palace of the town's ruler. Armed guards stood on either side of the open entrance, through which string music and lively chatter was pouring beautifully. The NPCs walking in were finely dressed, and Asuna hesitated in her steps.

"Hey, this casino doesn't have a dress code, does it?" she asked me, concerned.

"Chumi told me Qusack are in here, you really think they'd have high-class outfits already?"

The fencer giggled at my answer. "Of course, how silly of me – let's go."

I looked at my guild scroll for the vault balance, not intending to gamble a single Cor of it away, just wanting to see how close we were to a better guild house; we were at 125k now. Perfect; with six players permanently assigned here, we could get one of the three beach villas by February.

The casino's entrance was aligned diagonally with the mosaic tiles, and the guards had better armor here than in the beta. Inside, the air was cool, and sweet with flowers, the entrance hall illuminated brightly by a large chandelier. A statue in the center of the octagonal hall depicted a bird-headed goddess, and behind her were three doors into the playroom. A staircase on the right led up, while another on the left went down; down was open, but the stairs up had a red velvet rope across it, guarded by an NPC wearing black. The floor above seemed to be the source of the music.

Just then, Qusack walked back out of the playroom ahead, waving back to Chumi inside. Then they noticed us heading in, and stopped to greet us.

"Hey, you must have had a lot to wrap up!" Gindo deducted with a smile.

I chuckled with a nod. "You could say we're… all in on wrap-ups."

As I should have expected in a country where gambling was illegal, there was silence.

"So, is there anything new that I didn't tell Chumi?"

"May as well be someone who has more to offer than just info."

We turned to see the sand-gray hooded cloak of Argo, as the four members of Qusack shrugged and departed the casino.

"Alrighty then, what do you know?" I asked, curious about her offer, "I mean, what are the chances you've actually been here longer than the lot from my guild? …Not counting the beta's playtime."

"Well for one thing, you've already given 'em outdated deets. The monster colosseum is on twice."

I slowly nodded. "A day? Okay... There's more, right?"

"Uh-huh. That thousand-chip prize is still there," the Rat continued with a grin, "But it ain't the grand prize no more; that's for a hundred thousand."

I glanced at Kirito's face, and stifled a laugh. "And the VIP status?"

"That's thirty thousand chips, now."

"Thirty thousand!?" Asuna groaned predictably in need of the beach.

"We're gonna need the colosseum for that," I chuckled as we passed the statue, "Hopefully Chumi's party learned all of this quick. Maybe they could be with the VIP high-rollers upstairs, if that's one thing consistent with the beta – there's a luxury hotel further up from there, and the fourth floor is unknown to most of us."

Inside the highschool gym-sized playroom, were countless tables full of people enjoying games of chance and skill – mostly chance. To our right, roulette; our left, dice; and cards all around the space ahead of us. In the middle of the room were four counters making a square: a counter to exchange Cor for Volcoins, a prize counter for Volcoins to items, and a bar for drinks, and one for light food. Music from upstairs was drowned out by the clamor of enthusiasm at the tables, only a handful of green player cursors among the many yellow of gambling NPCs.

In the center of the four counters, was a pillar of marble three meters wide, with each counter's offerings in glass display cases on their respective sides. For the prize counter, a woman stood in a black vest, with five times as many prizes in the case behind her, as there were in the beta.

I went to the counter and obtained a pamphlet detailing the prizes, then returned to Kirito and Asuna to show them the prizes, Valkyrie obtaining her own to show to Kumiko's party.

"Let's see… Consumables for small chip counts, like potions… Tools above that… Accessories of both aesthetic and statistical value… And there it is."

My companions' eyes followed my finger from the picture on the pamphlet, to the longsword in the display case behind the counter, shining in the chandelier's light; silver as a mirror, gold in the bevel, gold brim, red leather grip, and a jewel in the pommel.

"The Sword of Volupta: 100,000 Volcoins. Pamphlet says it was the sword of the hero Falhari, the founder of Volupta and slayer of the water dragon Zariegha. It heals the wielder, purifies all poisons, and strikes true with every swing."

I turned to Kirito, and chuckled at his expression. "Makes sense that it's such a steep prize. Valkyrie, what are you gonna do, going forward?"

Valkyrie flinched at suddenly being addressed, and turned to me as she left Kumiko's party through menu navigation.

"I need to find the Fallen Elves, so I can figure out what they'll want me to do. Gotta make my story with Kysarah match up to my story with Ranfilo… and ensure Poncho Man doesn't get too much use out of the former's combat effectiveness. Maybe she already has info on him and his followers…"

I smiled and turned to Kumiko. "You want to hang around here for a bit, or head for your instance of the elf quest?"

The wrestler shrugged. "I'll work it out with the beta testers in my party. Am I to assume you'll see what Argo's offering you?"

I glanced over to Argo. "What are you offering us?"

"Info on a quest I'm doin'," the Rat answered behind her painted whiskers, "Long as you do it along with me."

She opened her menu and sent a party request to Kirito, Asuna, and myself. We accepted it, and the fourth HP bar and name appeared under ours.

"Now we should all get it – come on," she said as we followed her out of the playroom, and then to the stairs leading down. This way, was the monster colosseum. Scarlet-carpeted stairs brought us in almost a full lap of the building before we were on the casino's first basement floor proper. Another statue in the center of this hall, depicted a lion-headed warrior standing over a lizard-headed one. Behind the statue, another three doors like above, but dark beyond them.

The middle of the room was lowered like a bowl, and on the far side was a stage covered by a huge golden cage. Buffet tables with finger foods lined the walls on both sides, and there was a ticket counter in one corner. Almost 50 guests were here, at least half of them players.

"See those sheets people are reading?" I pointed out to Asuna, "They have the odds of the two monsters scheduled to fight on the stage. They list names and descriptions for the monsters, along with the payout if they win. The sheet's free at the ticket counter."

"Hm… I trust your gambling ability better than Kirito's, but I still have my doubts."

I nodded with a smile. "As anyone should for gambling, in general. Argo?"

The Rat snapped her fingers. "They have these monster fights at three and nine – five at each show. Of course, if you bet on them during the quest, you fail it – and I don't think there's any do-overs."

I blinked a couple of times. "Okay. What's the quest?"

"The client suspects the fights are bein' rigged."

I slowly nodded my head in an attempt to understand. "They're all still non-humanoid monsters? None of them can be taught to cheat?"

Argo nodded and pulled out a parchment. "I noted down the odds of last night's fight, because the single sheet changes automatically. Bouncy Slater was 1.61, Rusty Lykaon was 2.41 by the time they were on."

"Slater's a pillbug, Lykaon is a canine monster," I told Asuna, "Now Argo, which one was your client suspicious about?"

"The lykaon. It's been on for four nights in a row, and won each fight, counting last night."

"And you've been here for two of those?" I asked, wondering if she'd come to the seventh floor as soon as it opened.

"Uh-huh. So were Sarako and the Niceguy-Feminist Treasurers."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "NFT… She would use every last one of those words incorrectly."

I looked back at Kirito and Asuna, then held my hand up to signal that they shouldn't spare a single neuron on trying to understand.

"So, how have they been doing here?"

"They were betting on last night's fights like the rest. They won off the lykaon, but they were really close to the cage. I heard them talking after that fight, and I overheard them discussing the stains around the bars. I asked them to wipe it, and they gave me the handkerchief they used."

I nodded again. "And it wasn't blood?"

Argo shook her head. "They all sniffed it; no-one who recognized the smell of iron, could pick it up."

"What did they pick up?" Asuna asked behind me.

"Somethin' sweet an' flowery," the Rat answered, "They figured it was dye. I took the handkerchief back to the client for evidence, and now I have to get large quantities of two items by 1PM."

"And that's what you need us for?" I chuckled, sliding a hand under her hood to pat her head, and withdrawing it as she raised her hands, "What are we looking for, then?"

Argo smirked, knowing I was up for anything. "You'll need to go near the dark elf base for one; the fruit of the Narsos tree – they grow in Looserock Forest. I need 20 ripe ones."

"And the other item?" asked the fencer who was now at my side.

"Fifty wurtz stones," replied Argo again, "They're found in the riverbed west of Volupta, and they're black, so they can only be found in the day – and even then, you gotta look all along the river. But without anything else for me to do, I'll take care of that. You just get the fruit, yeah?"

"Sure," I answered with a smile, "We can have all of that taken care of by 1PM."

"Nice! I'll get those stones. Meet ya at the bar when we all get back."

And without another second of hesitation, Argo took off, presumably west of town. I shrugged, and waved Kirito and Asuna to join me in heading north to Looserock Forest, toward the dark elf base.

A/N: I have to force myself to stop playing any video games for the time being, so I can keep my attention on writing. I must have Chapter 28 ready for next fortnight. But in the meantime, I do have Chapter 4 of Aincrad Interim ready for next week.

If any of you are frustrated by technical difficulties on whichever site you want to use for giving feedback, then that lends more purpose – along with the already-proposed roasting and behind-the-scenes input – to the SAO Fanfiction Central server on Discord, accessible with this entry key: Sycypugbxq

See you all next Thursday-Friday overlap, which again, is my Friday morning.