Caught her.
Why had she grabbed her?
Because she was afraid the quest NPC would get away, so she'd grabbed her on reflex—and a child's short little legs naturally couldn't outrun an adult's.
Asuna held Yimi close, glancing around. Even wearing a cloak, she really didn't want anyone seeing the Vice Commander of the Knights of the Blood skulking about like some child-snatcher.
She'd already wrapped the girl up in her arms, yet no system warning window had popped up; she wondered if it had something to do with them both being female. But that wasn't the point right now, because under her gaze the little girl in front of her suddenly flashed an HP bar that didn't belong to a player.
The suspicious grown-up—the creepy auntie Junko had warned her to watch out for—had appeared!
Yimi kicked her little legs twice.
Realizing something was off, Asuna hurriedly let go and stepped back in a daze, opening up distance. In this game, everyone who couldn't react on instinct to a monster's HP bar was already dead.
Asuna didn't pay much attention to goings-on in the mid-floors. Apart from news of criminal guilds led by Laughing Coffin, the rumors drifting around the mid-to-lower floors weren't worth her concern. Even Kirito had only learned about the bug NPC as a freebie thrown in when he bought Titan's Hand intel off an information broker.
"Creepy auntie!"
"Creepy auntie? Me?" Asuna pointed at herself and blinked.
Before she'd been trapped in this game she'd been about to sit her high school entrance exams; she was still only the age of a first-year high schooler. It had to be because the cloak hid her face that the girl was calling her that. No—what was she doing, arguing with an NPC's AI?
None of that was the point. How could an NPC flash an HP bar inside a Safe Zone!
Asuna gripped her sword hilt. "I am not some creepy auntie. I'm trying to give you the bento I made—this cost me some very precious ingredients, you know!"
No, in truth it was only a B-Grade Ingredient, a rank below what Klein had gone and wasted earlier, but it still counted as valuable. She'd only made it figuring she could trade it for an S-Grade Ingredient!
Because Yimi merely looked like a child, and seemed to be the communicable type, and the spot was a Safe Zone, Asuna didn't immediately square up for a fight.
Yimi crossed her arms and tilted her chin up. "Tomohisa said—you can't eat—a stranger's stuff."
"You were the one who came sniffing over on your own just now, all greedy! And now you're playing the good little kid?" Asuna checked the quest. It still hadn't vanished.
She took a deep breath. "I understand. You just said you were already full, right? So once you get hungry again, you'll eat it, won't you?"
The bento's durability would probably last until evening.
"Not eating the creepy auntie's stuff."
Earlier the kitty wanted to eat and you wouldn't give any; now you want the kitty to eat something. Too late!
Fighting down her craving, Yimi rolled her eyes the way she'd seen in the cartoons she'd watched.
Then the HP bar beside her head vanished, and under Asuna's uncomprehending gaze she trotted up to her and—as Asuna's expression shifted toward shock—opened up her inventory.
The kitty had gotten here using that little cube, and almost everyone had one of those cubes, so she'd just grab another and head back.
Before she could pick out the Teleport Crystal from the big pile of unfamiliar text, Asuna seized her by the collar and hauled her aside.
"A thief?!"
Novel as it was, she just chalked it up to a pickpocket-NPC trait unique to above Floor 55—after all, no one knew what might turn up on the higher floors; the beta test had cleared fewer than ten.
This ought to be recorded in the strategy guide so everyone could watch out for it.
"I'm not a thief!" Yimi was very displeased with the label, and pointed at her. "Going through the creepy auntie's stuff—that's a good kitty."
"So—"
"What are you doing here?"
A flat voice sounded at Asuna's side, cutting off the retort she'd been about to make against that "creepy auntie."
"Commander." Asuna greeted the newcomer.
Heathcliff: a tall, lean man with a cold, severe face who, by his looks, had to be around twenty-five. What that seemingly stern face conveyed was, more than anything, the same calm as in the tone he'd just used, as though nothing external could ever affect him. Though clad head to toe in armor, his bearing made it easier to take him for a scholar.
This was the Commander of the strongest guild, the Knights of the Blood, and also the man currently acknowledged as the strongest player.
Because of the game's one and only Unique Skill, "Holy Sword," no one had ever seen his HP bar drop into the yellow, even now. The Clearers' ability to keep casualties to a minimum was inseparable from him.
Asuna hurriedly released her grip on Yimi's collar. "The thing is, I found a strange NPC."
She was too embarrassed to say she'd been doggedly pestering an NPC over an S-Grade Ingredient.
"A strange NPC? Now that you mention it, there is such a rumor."
Heathcliff regarded Yimi thoughtfully. "A bugged NPC appeared on Floor 35, a little girl dressed like a witch. Someone even exploited the bug on her to try to create the illusion that Safe Zones were no longer safe."
"A witch? A shrine maiden?" Puzzled, Asuna looked down at Yimi, only to find her once again reaching out a mischievous paw toward her.
She hurriedly backed up two steps.
Those two weren't the same thing, were they? And he hadn't even mentioned such an obvious feature as the cat ears.
"But I've heard the quests she sets are simple and the rewards unusually generous. A very famous Beast Tamer from the mid-floors got an item from her that raises your level while ignoring experience. Yet after her, everyone who tried to find this NPC came back empty-handed."
"Raises your level ignoring experience??"
Already at level 70, Asuna of course knew how hard it was for a high-level player to level up further, which was why she'd been rather shocked to discover Kirito was a full four levels above her.
"How's the situation with the field boss?" Heathcliff abruptly, without warning, steered the topic her way.
"We still haven't taken it down." Asuna's voice shrank with shame, even though the two days of failure weren't really much to do with her.
Heathcliff nodded. "Is that so? It seems you're under too much stress. Take two days off for now."
"Commander?"
"I simply think you need to relax a little. Keeping your nerves taut all the time will wear you down, and we still have forty-five more floors to clear. I'd rather not have my excellent second-in-command overexert herself."
Heathcliff turned, glancing at Yimi, who kept reaching for Asuna and kept getting blocked.
"If doing nothing would only make you more anxious, you could take the chance to study how to make good use of her bug. It might just help the Clearers boost their fighting strength by a fair margin."
That said, he shifted the topic back to business. "What tactics did you use these past two days?"
His attitude was plainly that of someone handing off work; busy with relocating the Knights of the Blood headquarters, he hadn't attended the meetings.
Asuna looked a little awkward. "We tried using A-Grade meat ingredients to lure the boss into showing an opening."
An utterly idiotic plan.
"Is that so? If you'd cooked it with your own hands, it might have worked. Your cooking is the best on the high floors, after all." Heathcliff, for once, cracked a joke, then took one last look at Yimi before turning and walking away.
"Nn?"
Yimi cocked her head and looked up at Asuna. "You're the best—chef?"
"On the high floors, yes. Though the low-floor chefs never get to touch high-grade ingredients—maybe my level's gone up faster than a full-time cook's."
Asuna gave the lunchbox in her hand a little shake. "So? Want some? If I'd been the one to prepare that S-Grade Ingredient just now, it would definitely taste even better."
She really couldn't see any bug on this NPC; Asuna leaned toward the Commander having gotten it wrong. A witch and a shrine maiden were quite different, and the Commander wasn't a game developer—how could he know so much about the program?
Yimi planted both hands on her hips. "Beg me—and I'll eat."
Her first time begging for food, and this pushy about it, completely tossing Junko's and Tomohisa's warnings to the back of her mind.
Asuna glanced left and right, and once she was sure no one was around, pressed her palms together and bowed. "I'm begging you—please, have a bite!"
"Nn. Well, since you've begged me, I've got no choice but to eat." Having found herself a way down, Yimi opened the lunchbox, ignored the chopsticks, and grabbed a meatball straight into her mouth.
Food grades in SAO were a genuine, no-fooling boost to flavor. Whether it was the system feeding the sensation back to your taste perception or the taste had truly existed in reality, either way it counted as one of the few things in the game you could truly enjoy.
Very tasty. Much tastier than the kitty's own cooking.
"Well?"
"It's okay." Stubborn-mouthed kitty.
"Good, then. I was worried it wouldn't suit your taste." Asuna pressed her palms together again and rubbed them. "So—do you have anything to give me?"
She saw the quest log already showing the quest as complete.
"Something?"
"The S-Grade Ingredient from before, of course. If I cooked it, it'd definitely smell even better, right?" Asuna was trying to actively trigger the follow-up quest.
Yimi flicked her ears. "That was—the last piece of meat."
Asuna's smile slowly stiffened. "Heh heh, how could it be the last piece of meat? Quit fooling around, hurry and just poof it out."
Don't joke—a quest NPC, out of stock?
"Then—"
Yimi rummaged through her storage space, dug out the spare pot that Natsuki Subaru had duplicated earlier, and handed it over. "You can have this."
A thing that would only take up space sitting in her storage.
Asuna stiffly accepted it.
Item: @@'s Pot
Can craft the sewer-grade exclusive dish: Red-Wine Rat Stew