Beater was made by mixing "Beta tester" and "Cheater". It was a word meant for people who used unfair means and a swearword that was unique to SAO. It was something I'd heard a lot of times. But however many times I heard it, it still hurt me deeply. The face of the person who had first said it to me, who had once been a friend, suddenly appeared in my head.

"Yeah. You're right."

When I affirmed it with an expressionless face, the guy started talking excitedly.

"Asuna-sama, these sorts of guys don't care about anything as long as they're fine! There's nothing to gain from mixing with these kinds of people!"

Asuna, who had been calm until now, suddenly knotted her eyebrows in disgust. A crowd had suddenly appeared and the words "KoB" and "Asuna" could be heard here and there.

Asuna looked around and said to the man who was getting more excited by the minute.

"Well, please leave for today. That's an order."

She spoke bluntly and grabbed my belt with her left hand. Then she started walking towards the gate plaza, dragging me as she went.

"Err...hey! Is it okay to leave them like that?"

"It's fine!"

Well, I've got no reason to complain. We made our way through the crowd, leaving the two guards and Agil, who was still disappointed. When I glanced back one last time, the furious expression of the man called Kuradeel stuck to my vision like an afterimage.

Chapter 6.

Salemburg was a beautiful castle-city on the sixty-first floor.

It isn't all that big. But the city, with a castle which has serene spires at its center, was delicately built from white granite and contrasted spectacularly with the overflowing green foliage. There were quite a few shops in the market so a lot of players wanted to use this place as their home city. But since the houses were crazily expensive-they must be at least three times the price of Algade-it's almost impossible to buy one unless you were at a high level.

When Asuna and I arrived at the teleport gate in Salemburg, the sun had almost set, and the final rays of light lit the streets a dark purple.

Most of the sixty-first floor was taken up by a lake, and Salemburg was located on an island in the middle of it, so one could see the setting sun reflected on it like a picture on a canvas.

I gazed at the city in awe, my breath taken away by its beauty as it shined blue and red with the vast lake behind it. Not that it would be that hard for the Nerve Gear to create lighting effects like this with CPUs of the new generation and their diamond semiconductors.

The teleport gate was placed in the plaza in front of the castle and the main street, which headed north going through the city and was lined by street lamps. The stores and houses stood orderly on either side of the street, and even the NPCs that were walking around looked well dressed somehow. I spread my arms and breathed deeply, as even the taste of the air differed from Algade.

"Hmmm. It's large and has few people. I like how it feels so s.p.a.cious."

"Then why don't you move?"

"I don't have anywhere near enough money," I answered with a shrug before fixing my expression and asking hesitatingly.

"...more than that, is it really okay? Back there..."

As if she realized what I was trying to say, Asuna twirled around with her head bowed down and tapped the floor with the tip of her boot.

"...it's true that some bad things happened a couple of times when I was alone. But to a.s.sign bodyguards to me, it's going a bit too far, right? I said I didn't need them, but...the members said that it's guild policy."

She continued in a subdued voice.

"In the past, the guild was small with the leader inviting people individually by talking with them. But as the number of members grew and started changing... Then when it started being called the greatest guild or so, something became a bit strange."

She stopped talking and turned around slightly. Something in her eyes seemed like she wanted to rely on me, and I subconsciously stopped breathing.

I had to say something. I thought that, but what could a selfish solo player like me say? I simply watched in silence for a few seconds.

Asuna turned her gaze first. She watched the lake, bathed in soft light, and said, as if to get rid of the awkwardness, "Well, it's nothing much, so you don't have to worry! If we don't go quickly, the sun is going to set."

Asuna set off first, and I followed suit. We pa.s.sed by quite a lot of players, but none of them stared at her.

I only stayed here for a couple of days when the front line had been here, so I never really looked around properly. As I looked at the delicate carvings that adorned the city, the thought that living in a city like this for a while wouldn't be too bad came unbidden to my mind. But then I changed my mind and decided that it would be better if I only came here once in a while to sightsee.

The house where Asuna lived was a small but pretty three floored maisonette which you could get to by walking eastward from the downtown area for a few minutes. It was, of course, the first time that I had come here. Now that I thought about it, I'd only talked to this girl during boss fight conferences; and we'd never even been to an NPC restaurant together before. As I became conscious of this, I stopped in front of the doorway, suddenly tense, and asked.

"Is it...alright? Y'know..."

"What? It's something I suggested first, and there wasn't anywhere that was fit for cooking so we don't have a choice!"

Asuna turned her head and bounced up the stairs. I steeled my resolve and followed her.

"E-Excuse me."

I hesitantly opened the door then stood there, speechless.

I'd never seen a home so well-ordered before. The wide living/dining room and the kitchen adjacent to it had furniture made out of light-colored wood and was decorated with moss green cloth. They were all most probably the highest-quality player-made items.

But it wasn't overly decorated either, nor did it make you feel uncomfortable. It was totally different from my house. I felt overwhelmingly relieved that I didn't invite her to my house.

"Erm...how much did this cost...?"

At my materialistic question.

"Hmm-, with the house and the furniture, about 4000k? I'm going to change so just sit anywhere you want."

She answered lightly and disappeared through a doorway. "K" is short for thousand. 4000k meant four million Col. I practically lived on the front lines, so I could save up that much if I tried. But I always wasted it on either some strange item or a sword that caught my eye, so I never saved up. I chastised myself, which was out of character, and sank into the spongy sofa.

Asuna appeared after a short while, fully changed into a simple white tunic and a knee-length skirt. Well, I say changed but there's no actual taking off and putting on involved. All you have to do is fiddle with the figure in the stats window. But there were a few seconds when the player was only dressed in their underwear. So unless they were a very bold male player, most players, especially girls, did not change in front of others. Our bodies may be nothing more than just a bunch of data rendered into 3D, but that sort of thinking got hazy after two years, and right now my eyes went to Asuna's bare arms and legs without any remorse.

Asuna, with no clue of my inner-conflict, threw a sharp look my way and said.

"Are you planning to stay dressed like that?"

I quickly opened my menu screen and took off my leather coat and sword. While I was at it, I brought the "Ragout Rabbit's meat" out as well and put it, which was in a clay bowl, on the table in front of me.

"So this is the legendary S-rank food ingredient-. ...so, what should I make?"

"Ch-Chef's recommendation."

"Oh...? Well then, let's have stew. It even has "ragout" in its name."

Asuna headed into the next room; I followed.

The kitchen was large, and the various appliances that I could see next to the oven looked expensive. Asuna double clicked on the oven's surface, set the time on the pop up window that appeared, and pulled out a metal pot from the cupboard. She put the raw meat in it, threw a couple of herbs in, and then poured water inside it before closing the lid.

"If I was actually cooking, I would need to make all sorts of preparations. But in SAO, it's so short that it's no fun."

She put the pot in the oven and pressed the "start" b.u.t.ton on the menu as she complained. Even as the 300 seconds counted down, she moved about with precision, making various other side dishes. I watched in a stupefied daze as she went about, not making even a single mistake in operating the menu or in the actual tasks.

In just five minutes, the table was fully set, and Asuna and I sat down across from each other. The brown stew looked incredibly delicious as it rested on the plate in front of me. Its smell enticed me as the steam rose slowly from it. Smooth, rich sauce covered the thick meat, and the creamy white marbling on it was truly enchanting.

We lifted our spoons and felt that even the time spent saying, "Thank you for the meal," was too long. Then we ate a mouthful of the best food in existence in SAO. I tasted the heat and flavor in my mouth, and as I bit into the meat, the juices inside poured out.

Eating in SAO didn't calculate and simulate the feeling of biting into the food. Instead it used a "Taste Reproduction Engine" that Argus and an affiliated environment programming designer had made together.

This sent preprogrammed sensations of "eating" various foods and could make the user feel as if they were actually eating something in real life. It was originally designed for people who were on diets or needed to restrict the amount of food they ate, so it sent fake signals to the parts of the brain registering heat, taste, and smell to trick it. In other words, our real bodies weren't actually eating anything right now, and all that's happening was that the program was wildly stimulating our brains.

But thinking of such things in this situation was just not cool. I was, without a doubt, eating the best food I've tasted since logging on. Asuna and I didn't say a word and continued to go through the process of scooping up the soup with our spoons and bringing it to our mouths.

Finally, as we cleaned our dishes-in every sense of the word, as if the stew actually existed-and left the empty plate and pot in front of her, Asuna let out a big sigh.

"Ah...I did well to stay alive till now..."

I totally agreed. Feeling full with the pleasure of having completely fulfilled a basic need for the first time in a long while, I sipped the mysterious-smelling tea. Does the taste of the meat I just ate and of the tea I'm sipping actually exist in the real world? Or were they man-made by manipulating the system? I pondered these thoughts absent-mindedly.

Asuna, sitting opposite of me with a tea cup held in her two hands, broke the few minutes of silence that lingered after the end of the feast.

"It's strange somehow... How should I put it, I feel like, I was born in this world and I've been living here until now or something."

"...me too. Lately there have been some days when I didn't think about the other world at all. It's not just me either... There aren't many people who are obsessed with 'clearing' or 'escaping' nowadays."

"The pace has slackened as well. There are only about five hundred players on the front lines now. It's not only because of the danger...everyone, has gotten used to it, to this world..."

I simply stared at Asuna's beautiful face, with the light from the orange lamp reflecting on it.

That face, it was definitely not a human's. With smooth skin and the shiny hair, it was too beautiful to belong to a life form. But to me, the face didn't look like it was made from a bunch of polygons anymore. I could accept that it was what it was. If I returned to the real world now and saw an actual person, I'd probably feel pretty disconcerted.

Did I really think that I wanted to go back...to that world...?

I was puzzled by the sudden thought. I woke up early and gained experience points while mapping the labyrinth. Was this really because I wanted to escape from the game?

In the past, I really did. I wanted to get out as fast as I could from this death game where you had no idea when you could die. But now I've gotten used to the game-.

"But I want to go back."

Asuna said in a clear voice as if she'd seen my inner conflict. I raised my head sharply.

Asuna smiled at me for some reason and continued.

"Because, there're so many things, that I haven't done yet."

I willingly nodded to this.

"Yeah, I suppose we have to try our best. I won't be able to look at the faces of those technician cla.s.ses that supported us if we don't..."

I drank a mouthful of tea, as if to get rid of the conflict inside me. The top floor was still far away. It wouldn't be too late to think about all this then.

Feeling strangely honest, I stared at Asuna while trying to pick the appropriate words to express my grat.i.tude. Then Asuna scrunched up her face and waved her hand, saying.

"N-N, no."

"Wh-What?"

"Some male players confessed to me when they made that expression."

"Wha..."

Disappointingly, although I had mastered my battle skills, I'd never experienced that before, so I simply opened and closed my mouth without being able to rebuke it in any way.

Asuna looked at me and laughed. I must seem pretty half-witted right now.

"So there's no one that you're particularly close to?"

"What's wrong with that...? Well, it's fine, I'm a solo anyway."

"Well, since you're playing an MMORPG, you should make some friends."

Asuna erased her smile and asked, as if she had suddenly become a teacher or an older sister.

"Don't you ever have any thoughts about joining a guild?"

"Eh..."

"I understand that a beta tester like you can't get used to groups, but..."

Her expression became serious again.

"After the seventieth floor, I think more random variants are appearing in the monsters' algorithms."

I felt this too. Did the programmers plan for the CPU's tactics to become harder to read, or was it the result of the program actually learning by itself? If the latter was true, it would just keep getting harder.