The thieving girl was useless. Dumbass Kirito just stood there without moving, and she still couldn't beat him even when he let her hit.
"Silica, you can do it!"
"Damn it, this guy is way too insulting!"
The same two boys from before were still cheering Silica on.
The Beast Tamer class was genuinely rare in SAO, and on top of that Silica was a rare female player—a pretty one at that—which gave her idol-level popularity among the players on the middle floors. Everyone wanted to party with her, even if most of them basically treated her as a mascot.
They called it a class, but the game had no clear-cut class divisions. Taming referred to the fact that certain individual monsters might not attack players unprovoked, and if a player happened to have prepared that monster's favorite food, they could feed it—and then, one new companion acquired.
No one had quite figured out the exact mechanics. Silica counted as one of the lucky few: she'd happened to run into a little dragon that wouldn't attack her, and happened to have its most-loved food on hand.
But after she published what she'd done in the strategy guides, no one else managed to reproduce the success. Taming carried enormous risk, and hardly anyone was willing to bet on whether a monster would turn and attack them. Life here came only once—there wasn't much room for error.
That was exactly what made her the popular one, the only one of her kind. There had even been people who proposed to her, though she was only twelve or thirteen.
Unfortunately, being one of a kind didn't mean being strong.
Kirito stood there without budging, watching helplessly as the little girl in front of him threw attack after attack at him, then swung his sword offhandedly to end the duel.
"I'm sorry…"
Having grasped the gap between them, Silica lay sprawled on the ground, tears streaming, and could only watch the rare item—the one that had already made it into her belt pouch—slip away from her.
"Nnh."
Seeing Yimi's little mouth pucker into a pout, Kirito hurriedly waved his hands to salvage things. "Once we're outside the town, you should be able to hit me. How about I let you hit me back then?"
"Okay."
A pop-up appeared in Kirito's quest log.
Quest: Let @@ punch you once.
Quest reward: /
"…"
Such a fierce streak of vengeance, and so much interactivity—how could this possibly be some ordinary NPC?
He'd gotten too used to going solo, probably. Anyone would feel lonely and isolated eventually, and here he was, at this point, actually sitting down for a serious chat with an NPC.
"Wait, first add me as a—… nnh." Silica, about to intercept Yimi, suddenly froze.
Because it seemed too much of a waste to let a quest item like that run off, she'd wanted to say add a friend so she could redo the quest later. Behavior that looked normal always made you subconsciously forget the other party was just a bundle of data.
Mm… data.
Silica glanced at the food in her Inventory, pulled out her most-loved Cake, and held it out to Yimi. "Here—I can give you something to eat."
Attempting to Tame.
"Mm, you're a good person." Yimi took the Cake, and her displeasure with Silica suddenly vanished.
Taming failed.
"This is for you." But Yimi handed the Fish Soup and bowl—the very thing Silica had been dreaming of—right back to her.
If Yimi weren't an NPC, Kirito would have wanted to just use a Teleport Crystal and leave together. The things really weren't cheap these days, but even more than sparing a single crystal, he hated drawing attention.
Walking out with the NPC from the rumors trailing behind him would crank the number of heads turning to the max—never mind that the man who'd just delivered that whole long speech was him.
He took a slight detour, doing his best to keep witnesses to a minimum.
Kirito wanted to get to the bottom of everything about this child. Apart from the "victim" Rosalia and the rumored dead and their witnesses, he was probably the only one who knew this kid might truly have the nature to attack players.
His conscience was running a touch too soft, but in a game where everyone staked their lives, he still didn't much want to raise a hand against an NPC that could hold a conversation—and was only a child at that.
What was more, if that light and the thing that had crashed the game were one and the same, then she'd practically done him a favor…
"What's your name?"
"Yimi."
"That's a nice name. We're outside the Safe Zone now, so you should be able to attack me. But no weapons—I didn't use a weapon when I hit you either."
Kirito planted his hands on his hips and straightened his back, the picture of righteous confidence. "All right then, get ready to swing."
Inwardly, though, he was already chuckling to himself. This game has no pain sensation. Sorry, little missy—this is what a rotten grown-up looks like…
"Guh—kh—"
Kirito got a taste of something he hadn't experienced in over a year.
Quest complete. Reward: none.
He crumpled to the ground, clutching his stomach in agony. "You're Kayaba Akihiko's biological daughter, aren't you… did he build this whole world just to bring you back to life…?"
"Meow? Kayaba Akihiko—who's that?" Yimi tucked a finger into her mouth, baffled.
Her innocent big eyes didn't look like they were lying. When it came down to it, this world even had a sense of taste—maybe pain was just screened off behind the program, and maybe a bug would drag it all back out again. Looking at it that way, he wanted to make an enemy of this child even less.
"Let's just call it me talking nonsense."
Kirito checked his own HP. Even a hit that hurt that much only came to HP minus one.
Looked like the earlier rumors were, eight times out of ten, some itchy-fingered idiot trying to kill an NPC for fun.
He sat down cross-legged, doing his best not to think about the pain from a moment ago, and softened his tone. "Do you know what kind of… what your own identity is, Yimi?"
A game admin who was supposed to exist? Or an actual code-conflict bug-NPC?
Yimi didn't want to talk to him. Because he'd let her get her revenge, dumbass Kirito was now little dumbass Kirito starting from this moment—and little dumbass Kirito she couldn't be bothered with either.
"What a random little temper." Helpless, Kirito called up his menu and took out the sandwich he'd been saving for himself, holding it out to her.
Yimi took it. "I'm a cat."
What was that supposed to mean, a cat?
The question he'd asked was maybe a little strange—trying to ask an NPC whether it knew it was an NPC and all that. Though compared to the question, the act of earnestly trying to hold a friendly chat with an NPC was stranger still.
"Then do you know the reason the game crashed last year?"
Yimi didn't answer. She looked down at the sandwich in her hand that she hadn't eaten yet, then looked back up at Kirito.
A hint.
"So greedy. Leave me at least a little, would you?" Kirito took out the black bread from earlier and gave it to Yimi.
She really did seem capable of getting hungry, but he could always buy more anyway.
The little cat took it and answered honestly, "Don't know."
"…Then give it back to me!" Kirito reached out, trying to snatch the bread back.
Did those two weird responses even count as answers? How could an NPC be this shameless!
"You already gave it to me, and now you want it back!" Yimi pulled her things away and scampered off a bit, watching Kirito warily.
How can you take it back?!
How do you even have the nerve to say that?
Kirito was left speechless—but he hadn't forgotten that the one he was dealing with was a little kid.
And besides…
"You're pretty uneasy, aren't you?" He rested a hand on Yimi's head and gave it a rub.
Running into a player who out of nowhere wanted to attack her—but testing whether you could attack an NPC was something every single person did when they first picked up the game. If an NPC had feelings of its own, how would it feel about that?
"Meow?"
"It's nothing. I know a place with much better food. Want to come along?"
"Yes." Yimi shook her head, tossing Kirito's hand off.
He'd already patted her head, so of course he owed her something to eat.