The storybooks had been the ones Dog-Eye loaded onto the ship; at the time, most of the storybooks had been lost along with that ship.
Actually Yimi had read this one plenty of times already, because it had a story about a little cat fishing with its tail that she especially loved—even though, as a little cat herself, she absolutely would never put her own tail in the water.
In the previous world, Beatrice had packed her some storybooks too, but the ones Beatrice considered interesting Yimi didn't like; stories you could only understand by drawing on that world's common sense were, to Yimi, worse than reading the little-cat-fishing story one more time.
But even a story you loved got boring once you'd read it too many times.
Yimi stepped up onto a stool and climbed onto the table, opening the window to watch the passersby on the street—a privilege that by rights belonged only to whoever had rented the room.
The people on the road all moved according to their set behaviors; some shops' NPCs even stood from morning till nightfall, essentially never absent except during the nighttime dormancy hours.
Since coming to this world, Yimi hadn't so much as seen another cat—otherwise she could have run over and roughhoused a bit to pass the time. Keeping her stuck in one place with no toys was just too tormenting.
Yimi changed back into cat form, observing the room from a smaller vantage point; the long stretch of human form had almost left her unaccustomed to this shape. But once she'd changed back, all sorts of perfectly ordinary furniture became terrain for parkour.
Cat form had many advantages over human form—greatly boosted speed and stamina, for instance, and more crucially, a heightened sense of smell. So the moment she turned back into a cat, she caught several familiar scents drifting in the air.
Because you had to taste food, and because some monsters had the trait of tracking by smell, this game did have an easily-overlooked scent mechanic.
Kirito's scent, the creepy auntie's scent, and the scent of the black-clothed villain she'd seen before at the tombstone.
She'd been in close contact with all of these, so she could remember their smells even in human form.
"Meow?"
Yimi set off toward the window, following the direction of the black-clothed villain's scent.
I'm gonna kill them all, kill them all!
...
Rather than watch other players struggle to their deaths in this game, better to join in and play one of the roles himself—that was death-game mastermind Kayaba Akihiko's thinking.
No—whoever was the mastermind would probably do the same. What Kayaba Akihiko wanted to see was never tens of thousands of people struggling in their death throes, wiped out at last in this world.
Heathcliff, this figure who stood at the top even among the Clearers, even among all players, was Kayaba Akihiko's alias—and compared with the other players he'd restored to their true appearances, he'd cravenly kept the face he'd sculpted.
But in truth he barely even counted as immersing himself in a player role, because the Heathcliff account had been an administrator account he'd had since the beta test.
That said, without him among the Clearers, progress probably wouldn't have been pushed along so swiftly and smoothly; he really had contributed a great deal to reducing casualties.
The GeoCrawler—the field boss wedged directly across the village gate on Floor 56. With its terrain bonus, going toe-to-toe with it made it an absurdly overtuned thing; yet as long as you could hit its belly, beating it was simplicity itself.
Getting at its belly under these terrain conditions was easy, too: at night, if a player didn't return but instead strolled by the fountain, the little-girl NPC who'd once opened the gate for Kirito and Klein would come over to strike up a conversation, and offhandedly let slip the hint for defeating the GeoCrawler.
It was a nursery rhyme that could put the GeoCrawler straight to sleep, and once it was asleep, players could seize the chance to strike its weak point and finish it off.
Of course, he certainly wouldn't just hand this information to the others outright; a hidden element was only fun if the players discovered it themselves.
And because it was only the third day, the tactic he'd adopted was nothing more than a lure-the-enemy ploy doomed to fail. A reputation for invincibility had to be shattered a few times at the right moments, too, to dispel any doubts that might arise—just as a cheating player still had to put on a bit of a show.
"I should have given you a different task." At the gate, Heathcliff deliberately voiced his puzzlement to Asuna in a tone that sounded a little curt.
In fact, while explaining to the others, he was also reminding Asuna in passing that she ought to have something more important to do: looking after that bug NPC who had, in fact, already appeared last year.
"Things over there have settled down." Probably.
Asuna explained her behavior with a blunt, no-frills reason: "If something went wrong in the operation while I wasn't present, I wouldn't be able to sleep."
No—it was purely that she'd wanted to lie in wait in the meeting room for Kirito, only to run smack into the meeting ending. To say at this point, "I've got other things to do, I'll sit this operation out," obviously wouldn't fly, would it?
Heathcliff knit his brows slightly, gave a nod, and voiced no words of rebuttal.
The great gate opened. Due to the terrain, only a small number of combatants entered the passage; if something went wrong, a larger group would actually find it harder to flee back, whereas a smaller group could also avoid the situation of the gate slamming shut too fast and leaving someone outside.
Every one of the Clearers' hundred-odd members was indispensable fighting strength; there could be no losing anyone in a place like this.
Asuna, who by rights should have walked alongside Heathcliff, deliberately slowed her pace to stay level with Kirito, just as in the early days of taking part in this death game.
But as she drew near, Kirito, seeming bothered, took two steps in a direction away from her—whether because of the "killed a child" lie, or because she'd inadvertently swiped his boxer shorts.
"Yesterday—I lied to you." Asuna spoke up before he could move further away, keeping her voice as low as she could, below where others might hear.
Kirito did stop moving away. "Which thing?"
Asuna tipped her chin up. "The monster-drop thing, obviously. I've got tons to do every single day—where would I find the free time to go hunting monsters?"
Saying this, Asuna also wanted to get across a second layer of meaning: that she'd fallen four levels behind only because she wasn't as free as him.
"...Really?" Kirito's steps halted.
Asuna complained, "This morning that little girl even stole my A-Grade Ingredient and made a meal unworthy of the name, and I've still got to promise to teach her to cook when I get back. If you know her, please, think it over—I'm not so deranged that I'd launch an attack on a child NPC."
"The A-Grade Ingredient—wasted?"
"It's coming—move according to plan!"
Giving them no more time for their back-and-forth, Heathcliff raised his shield and called out a warning; even before that, the ground-shaking pressure of the GeoCrawler on the move had come through from underfoot. Fortunately, everyone present was no longer a rookie whose psychological defenses would crumble so easily under that kind of pressure.
Just as he'd anticipated, this operation was a resounding failure.
Aside from the lullaby, this boss wouldn't be affected by any external factor, and even though he could block it for a certain span of time, he couldn't create the space for others to strike its weak point.
"Retreat!"
Klein, on receiving the order, decisively turned and bolted. "So it's still no good, huh? Kayaba Akihiko, you monster!"
"..." Heathcliff turned his face and shot him a look.
This distance could be crossed to get back inside the gate before the GeoCrawler crushed them; the little-girl NPC only helped close the gate at specific times, so they'd left people there to guard it.
But under their gaze, the passage's great gate slammed shut with a bang.
"?"
"The gate... who! Don't joke around at a time like this!"
The fastest runner slammed a fist against the gate.
"What are you doing? Who are you—you're not one of the Clearers!" At the same time, from the other side of the gate came the wary, furious voice of the gatekeeper.
"Sorry, sorry... don't attack me, I'm too scared, I'm afraid the boss will get in!"
"You scum! Grab him!"
"Don't, don't—"
The gatekeeper, willing even to go orange, kicked the gate-closer away outright. Since the gate obviously couldn't be manned by just one person, he handed the suspicious character straight to the companion stationed with him.
To be able to slam the gate shut at such speed while they weren't watching, right under their guard—how could this person be an ordinary player?
"Don't panic. Open the gate." Heathcliff turned, raised his shield, and barely managed to block the GeoCrawler's charge, but his shield's durability was dropping in a straight line, too.
Having only ever rehearsed how to close the gate without missing a single person once everyone was inside, and never how to open it, the gatekeeper's movements were a bit clumsy—but with Heathcliff there, they got the gate open without real mishap.
The several combatants hurried in through the gate, but at this distance it was already too late.
The field boss had charged in through the gate!