Chapter 338 - 39: Logout

Chapter 338: Chapter 39: Logout

"This pond’s quite a tough one, you know. I hear it has a ’master’ all its own."

The old-timer talking with Kirito was named Nishida; he served as head of the security department at the company responsible for this game’s network security, and out of a sense of duty he had personally tested the game—only to end up trapped here. He wasn’t the only one caught in this game for a similar reason.

"A master?" Kirito shot him a puzzled look.

"Mm. Actually, I’d noticed a special bait in the shop; I never did figure out what it was for, so I tried using it in these waters—and got thoroughly beaten for my trouble."

Nishida turned his head to look at Kirito. "Little lady, what’s your STR stat?"

This game had a party ’Switch’ mechanic. He’d never tried it, but if he—with his higher fishing level—could first get the King of Lakes to bite, then Switch to a player with higher strength to haul it out, it ought to work.

"Me? My strength isn’t all that high either—grinding mobs is just too dangerous, after all." Kirito hastily waved the suggestion away.

Whether or not his gear carried some hidden bonus, over these past couple of days he’d grown more and more practiced at pitching his voice low.

"Is that so? What a shame. Still, even if I did land it, without seasonings like sesame oil the dish would taste a fair bit worse."

Asuna had already developed substitutes for real-world seasonings like sesame oil, but faced with these words Kirito could only chuckle along; better to keep a low profile wherever possible.

Kirito glanced at the worthless little fish he’d caught, then at the big fish Nishida had just hooked.

"Nishida-san, could you sell me that fish you caught?"

He wanted to buy it, take it home, and tell Yimi he’d caught it himself; Yimi hadn’t been very satisfied with the scrap fish he’d hauled in yesterday.

"Eh? I don’t mind just giving it to you, you know."

Nishida smiled sincerely, took the fish out of his inventory, and handed it to Kirito. "It can’t nourish the body, but I only fish to enjoy a bit of ’retired’ life anyway. If I do get out of here, I wonder whether I’ll still be able to go back to my old job..."

"..."

Gentle words like these only weighed on Kirito’s heart all the more. Tomorrow he probably wouldn’t come—at the very least, not at the same time as Nishida-san.

Kirito left early. He knew he’d most likely made a grave mistake, yet he felt no regret over that choice—at least this time he wouldn’t have to face the title of ’savior’ afterward with self-mockery.

"Girl... Kirito?"

"Sachi."

The familiar voice brought Kirito to a stop. He glanced down at the skirt he was wearing and, after two seconds of silence, forced out a single line. "You’ve got the wrong person."

When he’d left, he had removed nearly everyone from his friends list—only somehow missing this girl. Perhaps because, in his memory, Sachi was such a fragile girl that he didn’t want her to mistakenly think he’d died and be saddened by it—even though she was, in fact, a few years older than him.

Sachi, too, awkwardly turned her face away. "It’s very pretty. I’ll pretend I didn’t see."

Pretending was useless; friends’ positions were displayed to one another, and she had most likely tracked him down based on exactly that.

Kirito sighed. "So you’ve heard all about it? I’d be grateful if you’d pretend you never learned I live here, too."

Sachi hastily waved her hands. "I haven’t told anyone, and I’m not here on someone’s behalf to question you about anything. I just thought you might be under too much stress and need someone to confide in... Sorry—you’re already married, aren’t you."

By just a hair, she might have been the one to enter into a marriage with him in the game—but she hadn’t managed to keep pace with him.

Back when she’d been afraid, it was Kirito who had stayed by her side to comfort her, and so she’d wanted to appear before him now, at a time like this—though in truth she also understood that the Kirito of today had no need for it...

Kirito didn’t much want to discuss the topic Sachi wished to raise. "Want to come over to my place as a guest? Asuna maxed out her Cooking skill not long ago—her craft is really quite superb."

"Is that all right?"

"Mm—though there may be a certain child who’s a bit too mischievous... Sachi?"

Under Kirito’s gaze, the girl before him suddenly vanished?

Vanished?

What had happened?

Sachi... was dead? Why? It had already been a year—had someone outside suddenly removed Sachi’s helmet?

Uneasy, Kirito opened his menu and, in the friend list, saw that Sachi’s status had switched to offline.

What on earth was going on?

He lifted his head and saw the sky tearing open, the program collapsing—this enormous floating castle of a full hundred floors was destroying itself.

His perspective scrambled for an instant, and Kirito was already above the clouds—truly above the clouds.

From a bystander’s vantage he witnessed Aincrad, the castle he had once loved and once loathed, crumbling step by step into ruins.

"Kirito!"

Asuna, worried, hugged him from behind, and only then did he come back to himself.

Had the game crashed again?

Kirito looked behind him. Apart from Asuna, he saw no other players—though there was one fellow who didn’t fall under the category of ’player.’

"Kayaba Akihiko."

"It seems that once we reach this point, it’s over." Kayaba Akihiko rubbed his face, gazing at this labor of his heart that had gotten so many people killed.

His tone no longer seemed able to hold the composure of one who once looked down upon all living things.

"What is the meaning of this—where’s Sachi?!" Kirito demanded sharply.

"Sachi? Is that some player’s name? She should have logged out by now—a normal logout from the game." Having finished rubbing one side of his face, Kayaba Akihiko rubbed the other.

That HP bar that had been slapped onto him was genuinely functional, but fortunately he hadn’t lost his administrator authority; reacting just in time, he’d locked his HP to avoid being beaten to death.

But this gave him no sense of security; anyone who could force an HP bar onto him would find erasing an HP-lock no great difficulty either.

It was rather shameful to admit, but on some level this counted as an act of begging for mercy—still, to lose cleanly and utterly in the very field he excelled at was, in its own way, a kind of satisfaction.

"The players remaining in this world will log out normally—the two of you included."

Kirito tapped open his menu. "The Logout Button hasn’t come back."

The players who had logged out had probably simply been sent back by Kayaba Akihiko.

He couldn’t bring himself to smile. "What happened? You’ve gotten so many people killed—and now you suddenly want to reward humanity?"

Kayaba Akihiko’s expression darkened imperceptibly. Having taken a solid beating, he wasn’t much inclined to discuss it, so he opened the Administrator Menu. "You can thank that virus girl."

"Wait—"

Keeping no one any longer, Kayaba Akihiko kicked the last two people remaining in this world out—ending, with a mere flick of his fingers, a death game that had lasted over a year.

He’d actually meant to keep the two people he admired most for a few words of conversation.

"Did they go back?"

Yimi had teleported over by having The World pound the GM system console, and she was still holding Yui’s hand. There was no need for Yui to reach for her hand first; back in the previous world, Betty had already trained her into the habit of holding hands.

"Mm. It’s over."

Kayaba Akihiko shot her an aggrieved look and sat down right there on the clouds. "Once Aincrad has completely collapsed, out in the real world my brain will be burned out along with it."

By then his consciousness might remain in this world, or it might not—who could say? When he’d been preparing this death game, he had already made his peace with dying alongside it.

Looking at the two little girls who were not real people yet seemed more real than real people, he couldn’t help but sigh. "It may be that from now on, only the two of you will keep me company."

What? The system reassembly still had such a long way to go, and you want the kitty to keep you, the backstage shit-cooker, company?

"Hand it over."

Under the uncomprehending stares of both Kayaba Akihiko and Yui, Yimi summoned The World once more, and even as she kicked him off the clouds with one foot, she had The World snatch away Kayaba Akihiko’s Administrator Menu in a single grab.

"What are you going to do?" Yui gripped her hand with a little more force.

Was this the kind of thing that programs like us could pull off?

Then she was tucked away by Yimi into the storage space.

Yimi remembered that this was the very thing Kayaba Akihiko had just used when he sent the others back to their world.

She flipped through it a couple of times and found the Logout Button at the very bottom; though she didn’t know what it meant, the Logout Button’s icon was simply a little figure opening a door.

Yimi tapped it.

Kayaba Akihiko: What in the actual hell.