Sword Art Online Progressive Read online

  Still, I had no more experience piloting a boat than the old paddleboards at the Kawagoe Water Park with my little sister when we were kids–I was terrified that I would suddenly smash the boat to splinters against the side of the dock. Only once I had tried regripping the oar several times was I confident enough to look over at Romolo and nod.

  “I’m opening the gate!” he warned, and pulled the lever. The massive double doors facing the dock opened left and right. The pale light of impending dawn and a roil of pure white mist poured into the workshop.

  “H-h-here goes, then! Hang on tight!” I called out to Asuna. Her response was utterly devoid of any kind of nerves. I took one last deep breath.

  “Now launching the Tilnel!” I announced, fulfilling the dream of every boy who had ever wanted to be a captain, and pushed the oar forward. The boat proceeded so easily, it was almost disappointing.

  Hey, this might not be so hard after all, I thought for the briefest of moments.

  “Left, Kirito! You’re leaning to the left!”

  “Huh? L-left?”

  I pushed the oar to the left in a panic, which only caused the prow to turn harder.

  “No, the opposite! Go right!”

  “R-r-right?”

  I tilted the oar the opposite direction, but its reaction was slow. There was a feeling of heavy resistance for a moment, then once the boat actually started turning, I felt an unpleasant grinding through the floor. Apparently the horn sticking out of the prow on the underside of the boat had scraped against the dock wall.

  “Um, is everything all right?!”

  “I, uh...I think it’s all right,” I mumbled in a tone that suggested it was not all right. Clearly I needed to look farther ahead than just where my hands and the prow were pointing.

  By the time I had properly straightened out the direction, the boat was through the water gate.

  “We’ll be back again, Grandpa!” Asuna called out, waving to Romolo. I tilted the oar to make a right turn.

  Out in the waterways of Rovia at last, I turned the Tilnel to the east and rowed as hard as I could. The gondola peeled through the morning mist and picked up momentum. Asuna spread her arms and cheered.

  “Aaah, this feels so great! Let’s just head straight out of town!”

  “I’m not sure that going out is a good idea...I was kind of hoping to get some steering practice in the safety of town. Remember, we promised Mr. Romolo we wouldn’t crash it,” I suggested. The fencer looked back in dissatisfaction, but she agreed when she saw my uncertain control of the oar.

  “Oh, fine. Then take us on a little tour of the canals.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” I replied, facing forward with a sigh of relief.

  The shadow of another craft came imminently racing toward us through the thick mist. I tried to remember which side the traffic used here and started to turn to the left before remembering that it was right–right!

  We weren’t going very fast, but the craft clearly handled slower than an automatic car. My only experience driving was in other VR games, but this gondola was just as fake as they were, so the comparison worked. Once my desperate turn was complete, the large gondola piloted by an NPC rushed past to the left with just inches to spare.

  “Watch it, clown!”

  I ducked my head in embarrassment and straightened out the ship. At this rate, it was clear that I ought to stick to the right edge of the channels.

  “He doesn’t have to shout just because his boat is bigger,” Asuna snorted.

  I tried to calm her down. “There, there. He’s probably just programmed to react like that if the gondolas get too close for comfort.”

  “So he would have said worse if we actually collided, then.”

  “Ha-ha, I’m sure he would have...”

  No sooner were those words out of my mouth than another gondola, this one the same size as the Tilnel, came racing by to pass us on the left.

  “Outta the way! Don’t clog up the canals!” the boatman roared before disappearing into the mist.

  “Wh-what was that for? Chase him, Kirito–I’ve got to give him a piece of my mind!”

  “I-I can’t. I won’t be able to make the turn if I go that fast,” I complained to the aggressive ship-owner, then stopped to wonder.

  When a player got his own boat, did that mean that the NPC gondoliers he shared the waterways with became his enemies? Technically, one would be drawing the ire of the NPC’s passengers, so it wasn’t nothing, but this seemed to be developing into more trouble than I wanted out of a video game.

  “...No, hang on,” I muttered, pushing the oar carefully.

  Romolo had claimed that he quit the shipmaking business because the Water Carriers Guild had monopolized the building materials. Why had the guild been so desperate to exclude Romolo, who clearly wasn’t a member? Was there some reason that they needed to control both the shipbuilding and water transport industries here in Rovia?

  In fact, that reminded me that the first gondolier we met in town had said something curious. When I asked him if any other boats might take us out of the city, he claimed that he couldn’t answer the question.

  What if that response was not a cut-and-paste reaction to a question he didn’t understand, but something related to the Water Carriers Guild?

  Perhaps there were ships that would go out of town, but circumstances prevented him from talking about it...?

  Struck by a sudden thought, I reopened the log window for the “Shipwright of Yore” quest, which I’d assumed was over. Just as I suspected, there was a new line of text right at the very bottom.

  The boats from the Water Carriers Guild are acting strange. Talk to the old craftsman again.

  “Sorry, Asuna, we’ve got to go see Gramps again!” I shouted, and slowed down the ship. She nearly pitched forward out of her seat and turned back with eyes blazing. Her mouth closed when she saw my face, though.

  Once the stationary gondola had finished its 180-degree turn, I made full use of my strength stat to row us forward.

  Thirty minutes later, the Tilnel was back in the waterways of Rovia. Asuna and I faced each other, our heads tilted at the same curious angle.

  “...His story didn’t really make sense...”

  “I agree...but the quest is still going...”

  Asuna straightened her neck and yawned adorably. It was 5:40 in the morning, about the time that the nocturnal players would return to town and the early birds would be waking up. If anything, I was a night owl, but sleeping in the Dark Elf camp had fixed my schedule to being more of a morning person. I was dead exhausted.

  Once I had joined her in yawning, my partner gave me a lighthearted scolding.

  “I told you we could have shared the rocking chair.”

  “...Well, you still seem plenty tired after using it.”

  “It’s because this ship rocks you to sleep...but if you want to return to the inn and get some proper shut-eye, I won’t argue.”

  “Thanks for being considerate...”

  I pondered our situation. Romolo didn’t explain exactly what the reason was for the other gondoliers’ antagonism or what happened between him and the guild. Instead, he gave us a mystery to consider.

  If you really want to know, find the big boat carrying wooden boxes instead of passengers, and follow it without drawing notice. It should leave town to the southeast around nightfall. Just be careful not to let them spot you. They’ve got ruffians on board–then again, after the bear king, you’ve got nothing to fear.

  “What do you think, Asuna? We’ve got our ship already. Should we keep going with the quest?” I asked, banking on the fact that the fencer had enough good luck to earn two unbelievably rare items already.

  She blinked in surprise and nodded as if the answer was obvious. “Of course we are. I wouldn’t feel right otherwise.”

  “Ah, okay. Well...I’d feel bad about submitting incomplete info to Argo...Let’s go back to the inn, then...”

  “Mm,” she replied
. I waited to continue rowing until she was back in her seat.

  We made our way south down the main canal and headed for the teleport square, enduring the continuing insults of the gondoliers. I was planning to leave the temporary inn overlooking the square to move to a proper hotel in the southwest quarter, but it occurred to me that keeping our base in the town center would make it more convenient for travel.

  After several minutes of rowing, a massive stone wharf came into view. The NPC-run gondolas only docked at the south end of the center island, while the east-and west-facing docks only featured a few little boats tied up. The western dock was straight ahead, so I eventually backed the gondola up to a pier with great difficulty.

  Asuna got up and offered a word of thanks for my piloting, then seemed to have an idea.

  “Hey...can’t we put the Tilnel in our inventory somehow? Do we have to leave it behind?”

  “According to the manual, we can fix the boat in place by dropping an anchor or tying it to a bit on the dock. Once it’s affixed, only the owner can unlock the ship, it says...so I don’t think we’ll need to worry about it being stolen...”

  “I was hoping for a more confident answer,” Asuna complained. She picked up a coiled rope sitting at the front of the gondola. “Is this the rope we use?”

  “I think so.”

  “And is that the bitt?”

  She pointed at a fat, rounded post at the side of the pier.

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll do it, then,” she announced, and leaped onto the pier, placing the rope noose over the post. That was all it took–a game message appeared letting me know that the Tilnel had been fixed in place.

  I set down the oar and hopped over to the pier to enjoy a good long stretch.

  It had been a very long day. Despite a few breaks here and there, I’d essentially been active for a period of twenty-four hours following the third-floor boss fight.

  But as I gazed at the beautiful ivory-white and forest-green gondola, it seemed to me that the time had been well spent. It never occurred to me that I might have my own vehicle that I could control in Aincrad.

  “Do you like the combination of white and green?” I asked.

  Asuna looked down at her own outfit. “Hmm...In terms of personal preference, I’d go for white and red.”

  That made sense, given her white tunic and dark red cape. I sent her a questioning look, and she put on a rare gentle grin.

  “The signs for safety or the environment are usually a green cross on a white background, right? The colors just popped into my head once we decided to use Tilnel’s name for the boat. Then again...that green cross symbol is only recognized in Japan.”

  “...I see...”

  I pictured an image of Tilnel the herbalist, a person I’d never met but heard about from Kizmel on several occasions. When I spoke, it was in a deliberately cheery voice to cover up the rare lump that rose in my throat.

  “Once I realized that I had to row it myself, we should have made it a one-seater. We could have saved on materials, and it would be easier to maneuver...”

  “Just think of it as a bargain: We built a two-seat gondola that can actually hold three.”

  “Is that really...a bargain...?” I wasn’t sure, but with my brain working at a decreased capacity, I had no choice but to hesitantly agree. “Umm...yeah. Sure. Anyway, let’s go back to the inn...”

  I let out an enormous yawn in the light of the morning sun from the outer perimeter, and this time it was Asuna who caught it from me.

  “Fwah...What time should we meet up?”

  “Ummm...Ten–no, eleven, please...”

  “Roger that.”

  Both low on sleep, we turned our backs to the steadily stirring teleport square and plodded off to our temporary lodgings.

  My mind went blank the instant I fell onto the bed, and it seemed like the alarm was smacking me awake just moments later.

  It wasn’t quite enough sleep, but at any rate, it was time to start Day Forty-Six. I noted the date (12/22) on my menu window and couldn’t help but feel like something important was coming up, but I was out the door before I latched onto what it was.

  Asuna and I met up on the first floor and headed out to the Italian food carts in the square for a meal. My hunger overrode my sleepiness the instant I caught a whiff of melting cheese. I’d chosen the panini sandwich yesterday, so I was trying to decide between the pizza or the fried fish or perhaps getting both to make up for the lack of breakfast–oh, but that would leave nothing new to try tomorrow...

  “...What is it?” I heard mumbled next to me. I thought over my answer.

  “Well, I was eyeing the fried fish meal...”

  “No, I mean that.”

  She reached out and grabbed the back of my head to turn it eighty degrees to the right.

  I saw more than a few players running straight through the square to the west. The looks on their faces did not suggest an emergency, but clearly something was up. I tuned my ears and thought I heard an even larger rumbling coming from the direction they were running.

  “We should probably go see what’s happening,” Asuna noted seriously. I longingly gazed side-eyed at the three carts before sucking it up.

  The teleport square here was an actual square surrounded by water, so while there were inns, carts, and other structures in the corners, it generally had an excellent view all around. So the instant we circled around the gate itself and walked into the western half, we noticed the crowd up against the wharf. There were at least fifty players there, but there couldn’t be anything beyond them except for the dock. And the public gondolas didn’t stop at the east or west docks.

  “...I have a bad feeling about this,” Asuna murmured. I nodded my agreement. We picked up our pace and closed the remaining distance at once.

  Upon slipping into the right edge of the crowd, we saw that our expectations were half-correct and half-completely wrong.

  The cause of the uproar appeared to be a brand-new gondola moored on one of the piers–the Tilnel. But what drew the attention of the onlookers was not the boat, but two groups that were facing off at the start of the pier. Both seemed to be made of six members: the max for a single party.

  The party on the left-hand side was entirely decked out in blue doublets. There was no mistaking the uniform of the Dragon Knights Brigade, one of the elite guilds of the front line.

  Meanwhile, the party on the right was in moss green. Like the other team, they were one of the well-known guilds in the game: the Aincrad Liberation Squad.

  As I watched in silence, a man with spiked chunks of hair just like a morning star at the head of the ALS stepped forward and growled.

  “You still don’t get how things work around here, do ya?! Listen, we found this ship first, and that means we got the right to investigate it first!”

  The target of his rage was a slender man at the center of the Dragon Knights with long blue hair tied behind his head. Though his irritation was plain to see, he kept better composure than the cactus-headed man.

  “You claim you found it first, but as the man in charge over there, you arrived two minutes later than I did. We’ve already started our investigation–why don’t you save your baseless complaints for another time?”

  “Baseless complaints?! No, you stuff that nonsense logic up yer ass! You don’t get the right ta act all high-and-mighty, when it was you who shoved my guard outta the way!”

  “Were inside the town. You know full well there’s no way we could have forced your man to move. These excuses are laughable!”

  Neither of the two guild leaders showed the least sign of backing down. A voice with the perfect blend of apprehension and exhaustion sounded in my right ear.

  “...I don’t even know what to say...”

  I thought it over and offered her my best advice. “In this situation, I think a simple ugh will suffice.”

  “..........Ugh.”

  I glanced over at Asuna and decided to be a
bit more constructive this time.

  “While there’s not much you can say about this other than ‘ugh,’ perhaps we should come up with a plan...Here’s Plan A: We go back to the square, eat our lunch, and sneak the ship away once they’ve all calmed down. Plan B: Butt right into their argument, reveal everything we know about the shipbuilding quest, and get them to see the light.”

  “...Do you really think they’ll calm down?” she responded instantly. I considered that.

  The Tilnel was locked to the pier by the game system itself. No other player aside from me or Asuna should be able to move it. With that in mind, I supposed that both of the guilds would have to give up eventually, but I didn’t know that for sure. If I was in their position, I could imagine the sight of that fresh new boat begging for a ride driving me crazy until I figured out how to get it.

  On top of that, the leader of the rival guild was right there. They weren’t likely to give up and withdraw, knowing that the other side might find out a way to move the ship.

  “Hmm. Maybe they won’t calm down...”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “Which means we have no choice but to explain the entire quest to them,” I said, resigned, but Asuna did not agree.

  “...And you can imagine what will happen after that, can’t you?”

  “Huh...? What do you mean?”

  “Y’all aren’t allowed ta slip ahead of us! You gotta help us with the quest until we git our own boat!”

  Her imitation of Kibaou’s Kansai accent was so accurate, I couldn’t help but get a shiver up my spine.

  “Yep, that’s definitely more than just an ugh...And we’re supposed to be tracking down that big gondola for Old Grandpa Romolo...”

  “There’s another thing that worries me, too,” Asuna said, looking pensively at the Tilnel. “The boat is currently classified as an Immobile Object, right?”

  “Should be.”

  “Does that mean it’s also an Immortal Object?”

  “Should b...”

  I stopped before the last e left my lips.