The Regional Boss was brought down without question—but the one who landed the final blow was Klein, leader of Fuurinkazan.
For the others who'd put in the work it was galling, even bitterly enviable, yet the man was a member of the Clearers too, and his growing stronger meant everyone's odds of escaping this game climbed another ten percent as well. After so long, matters of reality had been set aside to some degree; whether they adapted by choice or by force, everyone had, more or less, to treat their time in this world as their life. Daizen-san's careful accounting was one such case, and so was the fact that few objected to Asuna setting Yimi's prices—currency was a necessity in any society, whatever its shape.
"The Floor 58 Labyrinth is nearly fully explored. My preliminary notes on the floor boss are recorded in this booklet—please have a look."
Daizen-san set a small notebook down in front of Heathcliff.
"Oh?"
Heathcliff made a show of poring over it—though he already knew far more than the booklet contained. This floor's boss posed no real difficulty for them now; even without Kitty Cuisine, at their strength there shouldn't be a single casualty until somewhere past Floor 60. They had only one life, so players leveled as high above the floor as they could before even attempting a clear.
"And the Vice Commander?"
At this hour Asuna would normally be present.
Heathcliff walked to the window and saw the answer at a glance. Asuna, who usually took pains to keep up a dignified air, stood atop a bench, and around her several older players were comically hiding in various spots. The one they were all dodging—the little NPC girl who'd been the talk of the player community these past two days—stood blindfolded, hands out in front of her, groping around at random. The ears atop her head twitched twice, and she trotted toward a middle-aged man who'd carelessly made a sound; the man deliberately let himself be caught at just the right moment.
"Oh-ho, you're too good at this!"
"Everyone seems to be in good spirits." Heathcliff let out a thoughtful sigh.
Many of them were normally the serious type, Asuna most of all; as Vice Commander she'd always kept a dignified distance from her teammates on purpose—perhaps not unrelated to the number of people who'd proposed marriage to her.
"There are quite a few middle-aged men caught up in this game. Who knows what state their bodies are in on the outside; the pressure only mounts on everyone as time drags on."
There were plenty of players around the age of Agil—the one who'd lost track of Yimi earlier—since the launch hardware for full-dive tech hadn't been cheap. Apart from the closed-beta testers, players were either from well-off families or already working adults, and no small number had children back in reality. So when a mascot suddenly turned up, plenty of people were only too glad to play with her and unwind a little themselves along the way.
To keep the others from voicing resentment that they were hoarding the Kitty Cuisine NPC, the Knights of the Blood had offered up plenty of justifications: that the NPC could be harmed and so had to be carefully protected, or that the NPC had quite a temper and they had to coax her daily just to get any Kitty Cuisine at all. The latter, in truth, was something a good many of them rather enjoyed.
An NPC that would appear the instant a player's emotions swung too violently, offering timely counseling to stave off a breakdown—Kayaba Akihiko had indeed designed such a thing, but on launch day he'd disabled it and banished it to a corner of the database.
Heathcliff closed the booklet and rose. "Prepare the Kitty Cuisine. Assemble everyone for the raid."
"The Kitty Cuisine's ready. There's a new dish that's proven very popular lately—though its conditions are a touch demanding." Daizen-san's expression stiffened a little.
...
At the boss room's entrance, Heathcliff lowered his head and sank into thought.
What had been placed in his hands was a bowl of soup, giving off the strange aroma of wine cooked down—but lying in it was a rat with nothing but its fur stripped off, and by the look of it, a big gray rat from the outside world at that.
This was not something he should ever have designed.
> Rat Stewed in Red Wine: Sewer-Grade Cuisine
> Effect: After finishing it all, no other cuisine bonuses may be gained for 30 minutes; Resistance +30%, Stamina Recovery −30% (does not affect recovery from potions or crystals), Movement Speed +20%, Attack Power +30%.
> Reward of the Brave: Dying while the effect is active grants 1 second of invincibility frames and one revival at 50% HP, after which all the above buffs and debuffs are cleared.
> Note: May be eaten only once per 24 hours.
The crafting was demanding, naturally—the A-Rank Red Wine might take three straight days of grinding to produce—but weighed against the bonuses above, the effort was worth it. The biggest hurdle before them was simply getting it down; the description did, after all, require eating every last scrap.
Daizen-san, catching the scent of profit, had burned through the guild's entire material stockpile to craft some A-Rank Red Wine—and even then produced only a scant few bottles, A-Rank being especially hard to come by. But no matter: when he sold it, on top of his fee he could also demand the raw materials, and the Clearers were certainly short of neither money nor materials. As for his own guild members—well, they got to see Yimi every day, so if they wanted it they could go grind for it themselves. It looked a bit revolting, sure, but he trusted nobody would turn up their nose at a second life.
This was something Kayaba Akihiko would absolutely never have designed himself; had he designed it, he'd have made it a unique boss-drop item at most, and would at the very least have slapped a durability limit on it.
Heathcliff frowned—then something came to him, and his brow eased a fraction.
"Drink it, drink it, drink it—"
Under the gaze of a crowd of friends, the first brave volunteer, Agil, stared at the soup in his hands, drenched in sweat. He swallowed, and shot Kirito a pleading look. "I'll give you this soup for free."
Kirito patted his shoulder and gave a slight shake of the head. "Think of it as your apology for not keeping a better eye on the kid, hm?"
Agil gritted his teeth and chugged it down in one go, gulp after gulp.
"How's it taste?" his friends asked, curious.
No answer was needed; from the way the brave man's face slowly contorted, you could tell he was, for the first time, cursing with all his heart the game's mechanic that simulated the sense of taste. The worst agony was that, inside the game, he couldn't even retch it back up.
After a long while, the ever-cheerful, ever-friendly Agil, casting all restraint aside, forced out a single line for his review: "Kayaba Akihiko, you monster!"
To think he'd made such a good item this revolting!
The brow Heathcliff had just relaxed drew tight again.
* * *
"Meow meow meow~ meow, meow meow meow~ meow..."
Yimi sang away in high spirits. In all the worlds she'd passed through, this was the first time a dish of her own invention had been so popular—and it had sold for quite a bit of money besides. Which proved that Reimu scolding her before hadn't been her fault at all, but Reimu's bad taste—to think she'd actually felt guilty about saving some Rat Soup for Dog-Eyes and the others.
About half the Knights of the Blood had gone off to fight the floor boss, which left the already modest-sized guild suddenly quiet inside, with no one around to ask her to cook. Yimi focused on trimming the practice cloth in front of her, but with no one to guide her, she had no idea what she was doing.
Tossing aside what she held, she took out the Corridor Crystal the GeoCrawler had dropped—Kirito had explained how it worked when he'd come to visit. You could set a coordinate yourself and warp there, moving dozens of people at once. There were limits, of course: like the Teleport Crystal, it couldn't send you anywhere unexplored, and it needed a fixed coordinate.
The terrain of this world was very strange, and no one had ever explained to her just what its rules were. She switched powers and felt out the crystal—she could faintly sense the places it could reach.
Yimi crept out on tiptoe and found Kuradeel, who was grinding his teeth over who-knew-what: the fellow who'd once tried to commission a meal from her while she was about to nap, and then thrown a fit when she refused. Sneaking about, she opened his inventory, and while he wasn't looking dug out a Teleport Crystal and took it, saving herself a way back.
Then, using the Corridor Crystal, she arrived at Floor 100: the Ruby Palace.