Andrew Gilbert Mills was a mature, levelheaded man. He had a family, a career, and the broad, powerful build of someone who looked as though he belonged in a weight room. Physically, he was not all that different from Didos, Makoto Kaizuka's avatar in SAO. Both had the body of a fitness instructor.
If the full name still did not make it obvious, then it was easier to call him by the name everyone knew.
Agil.
The cafe and bar he owned, Dicey Cafe, had naturally become a gathering place where former SAO players could keep in touch.
Satoru enjoyed talking with an older, settled man like Agil. Neither of them was a teenager anymore. They could sit together over whiskey on the rocks, let the conversation grow pleasantly loose, and occasionally trade a joke that would have been inappropriate around the younger crowd.
Whenever Kirito and the others were present, however, the two adults had to mind themselves. Satoru could hardly contribute to discussions about school reports, exams, or celebrity gossip anyway.
That was why he rarely accepted their invitations. Just as he had in Aincrad, he remained somewhere near the edge of the group.
He did not dislike them. He simply saw no need to force himself into every gathering.
Still, when he had time to spare, he did not mind coming here for a few drinks.
"It really is dead during the day. Does this place honestly get as lively at night as you claim?"
Satoru glanced across the rows of empty seats.
"Look at the clock. It's two in the afternoon, and it isn't even a holiday. Who else has nothing to do and wanders into a bar at this hour?"
Agil pointed helplessly at the clock on the wall behind him while polishing the glass in his hand. It was already clean. The motion was pure habit.
He wore his usual work clothes, a white shirt with a black waist apron. Even through the fabric, the solid mass of muscle underneath was impossible to miss.
"From a customer's perspective, this place seems much more like a bar than a restaurant."
"I never tried to run it like a set-meal place. Most of the menu is Western food, and even the main dishes are closer to something you'd eat with a drink."
Agil set down the glass, picked up another spotless one, and looked at Satoru across the counter.
"Have you eaten lunch? I just got some excellent steak in. Want to try my cooking? Proper French style."
"That sounds expensive."
"You can afford it. These days, anyone who spends all day doing nothing is either unemployed or rich."
Agil grinned.
"Klein never stops complaining about life as a salaryman. What about you? Where does your money come from?"
"Investments, more or less."
Satoru considered the answer. He had given The Seed to Kurosaki Enterprises without asking for anything in return, but Hidemura still treated him as a business partner and paid him regularly at market value. The number in his account only continued to rise.
The Root Glass Company had once earned a five-cent royalty on every gross of Coca-Cola bottles it produced. Satoru spent his days playing games and still had a fortune flowing into his account.
Getting paid while lying around was probably the pinnacle of life for more people than anyone cared to admit.
"An investment tycoon. That's a lot more impressive than owning a little place like this."
Agil smiled.
"How about sharing some of that wealth?"
"I'm honestly not hungry. Just give me something good to drink."
"Real Russian vodka?"
Agil stepped aside, revealing a clear bottle on the shelf behind him.
"Sounds good."
Satoru nodded without hesitation.
Agil brought down the bottle, set out a small shot glass, and filled it two-thirds of the way before dropping in a few pieces of ice. The glass was barely wider than the bottle cap and held little more than a single mouthful. For anyone who was not built like Agil, that was probably enough.
Vodka could come off the still at nearly ninety-five percent alcohol before being diluted to somewhere around forty to sixty. It was the very definition of hard liquor. Japan had no shortage of drinking culture, but most people still preferred beer or sake to casually throwing back spirits like this. Drinking was supposed to loosen the mood and bleed off stress.
There were limits to how much stress a person needed to bleed off.
Satoru took the glass. He did not sniff it, swirl it, or offer a pretentious opinion. He simply tipped his head back and emptied it in one clean swallow.
Russian liquor deserved a Russian approach. No dainty sipping. If he was going to drink, the glass ought to come back empty.
The ice-cold vodka had a faint thickness to it. It slid down his throat like a thread of ice, then reached his stomach and turned into a line of fire that shot straight to his head.
Satoru frowned and rode out the sudden heat. A few seconds later, he released a long breath, licked the corner of his mouth, and gave his verdict.
"Clean."
"Baijiu is prized for its aroma, vodka for its purity," Agil said with a smile. "Baijiu carries a whole range of flavors from fermentation. A lot of vodkas sell themselves on being as clean as possible. That's the difference."
He looked over Satoru's narrow frame.
"I didn't expect someone as skinny as you to throw it back like that."
"Back when I was working, one of the older guys taught me that hard liquor was meant to go down in one shot. The worst thing you can do is drag it out. Keep smelling it between sips and you'll be drunk before the kick even arrives."
Satoru thought back to those days.
"Once you're seeing double, you can forget about closing the deal."
Agil gave a noncommittal grunt.
"Forget the scrawny build. Between your temperament and the way you drink, you're a hard man to fault."
He gestured toward the bottle.
"Another?"
"Another."
"You don't have anything important to do, do you?"
"I have nothing planned. I came here to drink. What else would I be doing, admiring the empty seats?"
Satoru shrugged.
"Smart-ass."
Agil shook his head, but instead of pouring another plain shot, he brought out his tools and began setting up like a professional bartender.
"The vodka alone isn't expensive enough. I'll mix you a Purple Haze."
"Can I smoke in here?"
"You're the only customer. Go ahead."
Satoru lit a cigarette and watched Agil work.
Alcohol and smoke soon filled the quiet shop. The heat was not set particularly high, but after walking through the winter wind, Satoru quickly began to warm up. He unzipped his long coat, exposing the white wool turtleneck underneath. The collar remained snug around his neck.
Halfway through the mixing, Agil made a drink for himself as well. He came around the counter and sat beside Satoru, clearly confident that no one else would appear at this hour.
"How have things been lately?" he asked.
"Nothing unusual."
"It's been a few years since the SAO Incident. Most of the players who were lucky enough to survive have gone back to ordinary life by now. People like you, me, and Klein are one thing, but even Kirito and the others are catching up on school."
Agil smiled into his drink.
"Whenever they hold one of their little gatherings here, I can't help thinking how strange fate can be."
"Time heals all wounds," Satoru said quietly.
"True... I heard you played with them again in the new ALO. Took down some giant sea monster, didn't you? Was it fun?"
"It was a world boss. Beating it felt like an accomplishment. We wiped a few times because we didn't have enough information, so the game itself was entertaining enough."
Satoru rolled the glass lightly between his fingers.
"But after everything that happened, FullDive games still feel more like work to me. I can't get excited about them the way the others do."
"After clearing a game as real as Sword Art Online, I suppose it would be hard for anything else to compare."
"Time heals wounds, but it always leaves scars."
Satoru paused.
"Agil, do you think what happened to us was good or bad?"
"Good or bad... That's hard to answer. Fighting with death hanging over us was miserable. But when I woke up and saw that my wife had kept this place running for two years, I felt something I can't quite describe."
Agil looked around the quiet cafe.
"For me, everything that came before only made coming home feel that much more precious."
"For an SAO survivor who didn't lose anything, you were fortunate."
Satoru's smile was faint.
"People move forward," Agil said, watching him. "You should too."
"Me...?"
"Sometimes I think part of you is still standing where you were three years ago, even without the armor and sword."
Agil sighed.
"You're right. Survivors like me, who came home without losing anything, were lucky. But not all six thousand people who escaped can truly call themselves survivors. Coming back must have been hell for anyone who left something behind."
"Sometimes death is easier than separation. The dead carry their feelings into sleep and never have to struggle again. The living are the ones who remember and blame themselves."
His voice grew quieter.
"There must be players who entered SAO with an entire group and came home alone."
"In the new ALO, the Monument of Swordsmen now records the names of high-level players. But in the old Aincrad, that same place in the Black Iron Palace held the Monument of Life," Agil said softly.
Satoru listened in silence for a moment.
"You're right. Some people still haven't made it out of Aincrad."
His gaze drifted away.
The conversation had grown heavy, and Agil made an effort to steer it elsewhere.
"That thing you're wearing is an Augma, right? The AR device everyone's talking about?"
"Yeah. It's so convenient that anyone who tries it once understands the appeal. Smartphones changed how people communicate, relax, even live. The Augma could do the same thing again. It puts data all around you instead of trapping it on a single screen."
"Technology really does get away with anything. I know how popular it is. Even my suppliers have asked whether I want to partner with the Augma platform. Let customers exchange points for things here, that sort of deal."
Agil took another drink.
"It took over daily life much faster than VR ever did. There's a game for it too, isn't there? Ordinal Scale?"
"The points and rankings come with real-world benefits. The developers and sponsors must have money to burn," Satoru added, unable to hide a little envy. "Since you use one, do you play?"
"I do. My rank is somewhere in the middle. I haven't gone out of my way to chase points. AR isn't like VR. Your actual physical ability matters, so you'd probably be good at it."
"Getting to trounce the Sword Saint does sound tempting. But someone has to mind the shop. I can't spend all day running around after monsters. Klein would probably love it, though."
Agil shook his head.
"AR games don't carry the same risk of surrendering control of your body. Maybe they really are better suited to this era."
Satoru's eyes narrowed slightly. He finished what remained in his glass.
"Planning to have a few more?" Agil asked. Satoru was hardly short on money, and extra business was always welcome.
"Yeah. Keep them coming. I may have something to take care of outside tonight, and the wind will be cold. The warmer I am, the better."
Satoru's voice had dropped.
"Shouldn't drinking get in the way of whatever you're doing?"
"It's nothing difficult. It won't matter."
"Then buy a bottle before you go. I've got Chinese baijiu over there. A few swallows will warm you up if you're out late."
"All right. I'll take one with me."
A smile returned to Satoru's face.
This one looked deliberate, a little too calculated to be sincere.