Sword Art Online:The Fourteenth Autumn
The Fourteenth Autumn
Aincrad Floor 35, October 4th, 2024
Kunori Fumio
"Kirito-san, congratulations on clearing Floor 73!"
Saying it out loud, Silica held up her wine glass. The black-haired swordsman touched his glass to hers while looking slightly embarrassed.
Clink, a crisp echo rang out and the small, aqua-colored dragon gave a high-pitched cry, "Kyuru!" from her place on the table. It might've been a reaction to the sound caused by the two glasses, but Pina somehow looked happy, too.
Sipping a bit of the light-pink wine, Kirito gently raised his glass again. "Thank you, Silica. Though...I barely had any action this time."
"...Really? Is that true?"
"Yeah. The boss was one of those 《Giant and Solid》 types. In theory, something like that takes a coordinated attack by lots of people, so a major guild like KoB or DDA went up against the boss while I cleaned up the underlings the entire time," said Kirito, who laughed unconcernedly, but Silica pursed her lips in his stead.
"I don't quite get it. Shouldn't the whole party handle the boss and the minions while rotating players?"
"Nah, that'd make the operation more complicated... But I do feel kind of bad that I didn't have a chance to take the LA." Kirito chuckled lightly and blinked a few times, then stared straight into Silica's gaze. She subconsciously hid her mouth behind her wine glass and peered back at him with upturned eyes.
"W-What is it?"
"Nothing... I was just thinking how time flies and even you're using words like 《minions》 and 《rotating》 now..."
"T-That's normal! How many years do you think we've been here?!" Silica shot back and gulped down her glass to conceal her burning cheeks.
No matter how many liters of alcohol was consumed in this world, the player's real body never ingested even a single drop, but like how it was more sour than sweet, the player would get just a little light in the head when the wine-like liquid was chugged in one shot.
This day was October 4th, 2024. It had been one year and eleven months since the start of the Death Game 《Sword Art Online》, so the "how many years" line that Silica said was a bit of an exaggeration, but it really felt like many years have passed. She was completely used to life on the steel floating castle and the day-to-day adventures―even mastering various MMORPG terminologies―but her level still fell short of Kirito and the clearers'.
So, typically, opportunities for Silica to see Kirito were scarce. The reason why she was meeting him like this in the NPC restaurant on the first floor of the inn 《Weathercock Pavilion》 in the town square of Miesche on Floor 35 was because she summoned him under the pretext of treating him to a celebration for clearing Floor 73.
She had used the same 《ruse》 several times in the past, but the feelings hidden in her heart were just a little more special today. Of course, she didn't plan on confessing or anything at all. Far from it, Silica had no thought of saying why today was special to her. She was content with being able to spend just a few hours together with Kirito during the early evening.
Kirito lifted the bottle and filled his glass, which he'd put down on the table, with the pink liquid. Silica's virtual heart skipped a beat at the gesture, even one as simple as that. Convincing herself to act normal, plain and normal, she returned to conversation.
"...If the Floor 73 boss was the 《Giant & Solid》 type, then the Floor 74 boss has got to be the 《Tiny and Cuddly》 type. You're going to get lots of action the next time."
"Hmm, those sorts of bosses are a massive pain to fight...so I really don't want to take them on." Kirito gave a faint, wry smile at Silica's words and poked at the nut tart on the table with his fork. The cake tart with a fluffy crust that was loaded with cheese mousse and tons of nuts seemed like it would've been all but impossible to eat neatly in the real world, but it was sliced into perfect proportions just by stabbing it lightly with a fork in this world. The crust didn't fall apart, nor did any nut fall out. Kirito started to bring a bite-sized piece of the tart to his mouth, when―
Pina, who had been quiet this entire time on the table, stretched her long neck toward Kirito and whined, "Kyuru?" She looked just as if she was begging for cake...and she wasn't acting on anything else.
"H-Hey, Pina, that's bad manners!" Silica hurriedly reached toward her pet dragon, not unlike a pet dog. However, Pina slipped freely through Silica's hands and kept looking straight up at Kirito's face with her beady eyes.
By principle, pets in SAO―officially, Tamed Monsters―would only eat when personally fed by their owners. Even when they found their favorite nuts or bugs while in the Field, they ignored them. Since they didn't directly complain about being hungry, if the owner forgot to feed them for a prolonged period of time, an invisible parameter for affinity would fall, causing the Tamed status to be abruptly voided, and they would flee. In the worst case scenario, they would even attack their owner.
Silica always kept Pina's favorite nuts in her waist pouch and even wore a timer earring on her right ear, so she never forgot to feed regularly. She even faithfully fed Pina before entering the restaurant, so Pina shouldn't have gotten hungry for another hour and half... No, even in that case, she absolutely shouldn't have shown interest in the human cuisine that other players were eating, even if there was a nut tart chock-full of Pina's beloved nuts.
Thinking of something along those lines in a corner of her mind, Silica tried to pick up Pina. "Geez, I said no..."
However, she was held back by Kirito's left hand inches from Pina. The black-haired swordsman smiled faintly and moved his right hand with the fork to in front of Pina. The small dragon instantly sank her teeth into a piece of the nut tart and happily munched on it.
"Ohh... Pina, you..." Silica bowed her head and apologized for her pet. "I'm sorry, Kirito-san. Her manners usually aren't this bad..."
"You don't need to apologize. In the real world, I'd get chewed out instead for giving treats to someone else's pet without permission."
"Hahah, that's true...but that's not the problem. I'll ban putting her on the table from now on!" declared Silica firmly, reaching out again to put Pina down on the floor before she would ask for seconds.
But what nerve. The small, aqua-colored dragon nimbly dodged her master's hands and took flight from the table, flying a small lap before landing on a head.
Not Silica's but Kirito's.
"Ah, augh! I-I'm so sorry..." Silica bolted up and threw out her hands, but the table was too wide and she couldn't reach.
In the meantime, Pina folded her wings, beneath which she tucked her head after wrapping it around herself, and assumed a sleeping position. Before the speechless Silica's very eyes, she was fast sleep, breathing peacefully with a "kyururu...spee..."
"13:35, 23 May 2013 (CDT)~!!" Uttering a muted growl at her pet for the terrible misbehavior, Silica tried to circle around the table, but Kirito stopped her again with a single raised hand.
"It's okay. Let her sleep."
"B-But that's not..."
"I'm fine with it. She's not heavy at all, and my head's all warm."
"...I'm really sorry..."
Silica hesitated about plucking Pina anyways from Kirito's head, despite being told otherwise, before forcing herself to sit back down. She quickly glanced around the eatery, where, luckily, there weren't any other players. It was still a little early for dinner; 《The Bewildering Woods》 on Floor 35 that was once popular with mid-level players half a year ago had become depopulated as of late with the discovery of more efficient hunting grounds in turn.
When Silica looked in front of her again, Kirito was nonchalantly stuffing his face with the nut tart while Pina rested on his head. Spurred by his eating, Silica also lightly jabbed her fork into the cheesecake that had been placed in front of her. It responded with a plop as a light-yellow piece was sliced off, which Silica brought to her mouth as mannerly as she could. A sweet, rich, and refreshing taste radiated through her.
Silica was especially fond of 《Weathercock Pavilion》's baked cheesecake and she had it almost daily when she was hunting regularly in The Bewildering Woods, but now she was only ordering it when there was something special, because―
"...This sure brings back memories," mumbled Kirito quietly, across from her. He continued to gaze out the window steeped in sunset colors. "I think we toasted with the wine that I brought in back then, didn't we? ...Has it been half a year already...?"
"It really has been... Your wine was delicious. It raised my AGI as well."
Hearing Silica's words, Kirito looked back at her and grinned. "The drop rate for that wine has been patched and you can't really get it anymore. If you're thinking of having some now, a single glass of it is like 1,000,000* col."
*Pronounced as 'one mega'
"Wha..." Silica reflexively covered her mouth with her left hand. If she had 1,000,000 col, she could afford a fairly spacious room in the neighborhood of 《Miesche》. For a moment, she almost imagined 100,000 col in gold jingling in her stomach, but she promptly perished that thought. "...To me, what happened on that day is a precious memory that not even all of the col in Aincrad can buy. One mega col can't shake me!"
"Hahah, really? ...Yeah, I guess so... To me as well..."
The swordsman paused and looked out the window again. No matter how much his head bobbed, Pina showed no sign of waking up. She appeared as relaxed as when she slept by Silica's side at night, continuing to snooze with a "kyururu...kyururu..."
"Maybe..." whispered Silica, but only Kirito's eyes shifted to her briefly. Staring into his pitch-black eyes, she repeated, "Maybe Pina remembers that you're the one who brought her back to life, Kirito-san."
"Really...?"
"I'm sure she does. That's why I love you."
The words tumbled out naturally. In the three whole seconds it took for Silica to recognize what she had said, her hand thrust out in front of her. They waved wildly as she cried, "Oh, n-no! For Pina! Pina! I didn't mean anything else!"
"...Uh, okay."
Seeing how speechless Kirito looked, Silica realized that her reaction was over the top. She waved again, screaming shrilly―
"Oh, f-forget what I just said! Forget it!"
―But was that the best idea? By retracting the statement that the one who loves Kirito was Pina, the subject must inevitably to have been someone other than her and the only candidates in this place were Silica and the NPC waiter. If only it was a waitress, then there would've been some room to kind of construe it...
Silica was incredibly flustered, her embarrassment magnified, and she was also ruining this 《Special Day》. She felt so miserable about herself that tears started to pool in her eyes, when―
Kirito suddenly raised his right hand and flicked down. A menu window opened, accompanied by a ringing sound. As Silica watched, caught off-guard and her thinking seized, his slender fingertip fluidly navigated the screen and a single object materialized in no time flat.
A small, white box fell into Kirito's palm from the closed window with a soft noise. An aqua-blue ribbon crisscrossed the impenetrable box.
With the box in his right hand, Kirito smiled, "It's late, but this is the answer to your quiz."
"...It is...? I gave you...a quiz...?" she asked, stunned, and the swordsman answered, looking somewhat taken back.
"You did. The last time we met, when I asked about where your character name came from..."
"Huh... Oh...!" Silica's hands flew to her mouth and her eyes opened wide. She recalled that they did have such a conversation when she shared a meal with him last month under the pretext of a celebratory party for clearing Floor 70.
The name 'Silica' was based on her name in the real world, so its origin wasn't quite something to keep secret. She strangely felt embarrassed about its lack of substance, rather, and turned the answer into a riddle: "My real name comes after Arumi but before Rin."
At the time, Kirito looked baffled, like "what was that?" but apparently he had arrived at sort of answer in a month. However, why didn't he say it but present a small box? Could the answer have been written on a slip of paper inside of it?
With Pina still sound sleep on his head, Kirito skillfully spun the box on his fingertip. "Well, actually, I should've caught on when I heard Arumi and Rin. I was thinking that Rin was a girls' name...and Arumi could be spelled in different ways... So I put a ton of thought into what name would come between the two."
Silica burst out laughing at the unexpected. "Hahahah... I did have a real friend named Rin-chan, but I've never, ever, had anyone named Arumi-chan."
"I wouldn't know that. My dad really liked that name... But that's not the point."
He returned the little box that was on his fingertip to his hand and heaved a sigh. "It took me a week to realize that Rin and Arumi weren't girls' names. Arumi is normally known as aluminum and Rin is the phosphorus used in matches...and what comes between them, to put it simply, is on the periodic table."
"Yes, you're right so far!" Silica clapped lightly. She clasped her hands and brought them to her mouth. "...So, do you know what comes between them?"
"Of course. ...Or that's what I want to say, but all I could remember was 《Happy Henry Likes Beer But Can Not Obtain Four Newts》...so I asked an acquaintance about what comes after that: sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus. So what comes between them is silicon. In Japanese, it's called keiso. When two oxygen atoms bond to it, it becomes oxidized, which is...silica."
"Oh yes, that's also right!" She clapped again, but she still didn't understand why Kirito produced a small box from storage. As if she was the one being quizzed now, Silica waited for Kirito to continue.
"So I thought your real name is related to silicon possibly by containing the character for 《kei》... Though I won't follow up on that," smiling broadly, he leaned his head as far as he could without dropping Pina. "By the way, why is your character name 《Silica》, not something like 《Silico》?"
"Oh, that's just because...Silico doesn't sound too cute..." She giggled and tugged at the red ribbons tying her hair to the sides of her head. "But I get to have oxygen...two O atoms bonded right here."
"Whoa... I see, so those ring baubles are supposed to be O2. They make SiO2 with silicon... I see why you're called Silica. ...Anyhow, I've solved the quiz you gave me. Now I'm curious why your parents used the character 《kei》 in their kid's name..."
"Oh... Normally, you'd use the 《kei》 without a radical or the 《kei》 with the person radical, right?" said Silica, thinking that he didn't know the reason as she expected. However, since it was Kirito who she was talking to― No, because it was Kirito, that was the only thing she couldn't tell him, because it was directly linked to the secret hidden deep in her heart today.
However, Kirito placed the small box on the table and grinned knowingly again. "I started to wonder when I got the message from you. It's rare for you to specify a meeting date, isn't it? You wrote, "on October 4th," but before this, you've always wrote "tomorrow" or "the day after tomorrow"."
"Huh... O-Oh, really?"
"Really. That's when I wondered... ―So anyways, umm...Happy Birthday, Silica." With those words, Kirito slid the small box with the aqua-blue ribbon right in front of Silica.
She stiffened for a full five seconds, then―
"Whaaaaaaaa?!" Silica jumped up from her seat while screaming at the top of her lungs.
Immediately, Pina perked up from Kirito's head and hastily scanned around. Confirming the absence of monsters, she let out a great, lazy yawn, took off from Kirito's head, and settled on her usual spot, Silica's left shoulder.
As if quashed by the weight of the small dragon, Silica slumped back down into her chair and whispered, stupefied, "U-Um, why...?"
"Oh, am I right, given how you reacted?"
"Uh, y-yes, you are... But how...?" she asked again, forgetting to even thank him. The 《special》 reason that she'd planned to keep secret forever was thwarted, just like that.
Relieved, Kirito unclenched his jaw and ruffled his flattened black hair.
"Thank goodness, I was wondering what I'd do if I got it wrong. The reason why the character 《kei》 is used in your name is because your birthday is on October 4th...right? Because together, they make 14...the atomic number of silicon. Maybe your mom or dad is a chemist?"
Still in a state of shock, Silica answered reflexively, "Oh... Um, my grandfather is the chemist. And he named his child...my dad; he was born on February 6th, so he named him 《Tetsuhiko》 after iron, which has the atomic number of 26... My dad is really into arts and literature, but I think he wanted to continue the naming trend, so when I was born on October 4th, he tried to name me after atomic number 104."
"Erk, 104...? What element is that...?"
"It's 《Rutherfordium》. But no matter how he sliced it, he couldn't get a girls' name out of it...so he resorted to adding 10 and 4 together to make 14 and came up with the name 《Keiko》 from silicon..." She knew she had revealed her real name after going into that much detail, but with her birthday disclosed as well, she no longer thought it was a big deal. Silica withdrew herself, as if hiding behind the wings of Pina on her left shoulder, and she continued, "...So, um...I'm sorry, Kirito-san, for summoning you without telling you it's my birthday..."
"N-No, please, don't apologize." Seeing that Silica was trying to hang her head even further, Kirito hurriedly waved it off. "Uh, um, there's like a taboo around bringing up the topic of the real world here in Aincrad... I understand how you felt like you couldn't say it's your birthday...so I should be the one apologizing, for prying into your real name and birthday..."
"N-Not at all! I'm actually glad!" Now Silica was waving. If she was the one who summoned him for her birthday, then she should be the one to reveal her real name. There was nothing for Kirito to apologize about.
Her downcast eyes caught the sight of the small, white box. She glanced at it for a moment, then looked up with a jerk. "Er...um...s-so, is this box...is it, uh, f-for m-..."
As if rocked by Silica's outburst, Kirito pulled back somewhat and nodded with a wry smile. "It'd be horrible of me to say that it isn't a birthday present for you now. ...Though I didn't have any time to prepare something big, so please don't get your hopes up too much."
"W-w-w-why would I? I'd be happy with anything from you. Um, may I open it?"
Kirito had barely nodded his approval when Silica picked up the box from the table with both of her hands.
If this was the real world, then she'd be eagerly untying the aqua-blue ribbon, but unfortunately she couldn't experience the process in this world. She tapped it with her fingertip and selected 《Open》 on the displayed pop-up screen, upon which the box automatically opened and disappeared.
Down fell into Silica's palms was―
―A thin ring shining in gold.
So startled that she couldn't even cry, "Whaaaaa―?!" Silica was completely frozen.
There were four types of accessory items in SAO: earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings. Kirito could've picked any one of them, but he dared to pick a ring because it meant that...it meant that―?
With the beautiful ring designed like an angel's wings in her left hand, Silica looked up nervously.
Their eyes met. The black-haired swordsman gave a small smile as he slowly nodded, "That's the reward item for the quest 《Angel's Ring》, which showed up recently. Its proper name is 《Ring of Angel's Whisper》. It doesn't really raise stats, but it does have a pretty powerful magic ability..."
"...Magic...ability?"
"Yep. It can send voice messages to registered players once a month. You know, Silica, don't you send me messages about that often? It must be tough for you to think of what to write each time, so you can use that ring like a cellphone from now on."
"...Like a...cellphone?" She eyed the ring in her hand again.
―In other words, this ring never meant this or that or anything else...other than just being a convenient way to communicate...
"...Umm..." Lost for a moment on how to react, Silica took a deep breath, then broke into a smile. "...Thank you very much, Kirito-san. I'm so happy!" She gently held the ring in her right hand and equipped it on her left hand's ring―nope, index finger.
Ignoring the implications, it didn't change the fact that she was able to receive a ring on her birthday from someone who she loves. It'd be too greedy to ask for anything more.
The current front line was Floor 74. The clearing of the floating castle was no more than three-quarters complete. Estimated time for reaching the highest floor would be another year, and Silica's secret goal was to join the clearers there.
―I'll never miss a month of contacting him with this ring until that day. Making up her mind, a pure joy, after some time lag, spread through her body from the depths of her heart. With a wide grin on her face once more, Silica remarked, "Daddy said that my fourteenth October 4th would be a special birthday. And it's true!"
Hearing that on her left shoulder, Pina seemed to have sensed her master's emotions. She also spread her wings wide and happily cooed, "Kyururururu!"
However, in the end, Silica never sent her voice to Kirito with 《Angel's Ring》.
Approximately one month after her birthday, on November 7th, Sword Art Online was cleared with 25 floors remaining.
The steel floating castle collapsed and resurfaced about half a year later in the skies of another world. With the new Aincrad as the setting, Silica took on the challenge to obtain 《Angel's Ring》 through her own power this time―
But that's another story.
《Fin》
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