Part 20 (1/2)

I nodded slowly while looking into Asuna's eyes.

Tears formed in her hazelnut eyes as Asuna silently pressed her lips against the hand she was holding. I could feel their soft movement.

”I'll also...bear it with you. Every burden that you have, I'll carry them with you. I promise. I'll definitely protect you from now on...”

This was- The line that I couldn't say even once up until now. Yet in this moment, my lips trembled, and I could hear the sounds unveiling themselves from my throat, from my very soul.

”Me too.”

A very thin voice reverberated across the air.

”I'll protect you too.”

Although these were simple words, I had said them in such a pathetically quiet and unreliable manner. I smiled bitterly as I held up Asuna's hand and said: ”Asuna...you really are strong. You're far stronger than me...”

After hearing that, Asuna blinked several times and then smiled.

”No, I'm not. I usually hide behind other people in the real world. Even this game wasn't something that I bought.”

She laughed as if she had just thought of something.

”It was something that my older brother bought, but he had to suddenly leave for business; so I got to play with it on the game's opening day. He was really disappointed about that. He must be really angry now that I've occupied it for two years.”

I thought that Asuna was even unluckier to have come here in his stead, but I just nodded.

”...you'd better get back quickly and apologize.”

”Yeah... I'll have to try harder...”

But Asuna trailed off weakly as she said this, casting her eyes downward as if she was afraid of something and then moving her entire body closer to me.

”Umm...Kirito-kun, I know this is contradicting what I just said...but can we leave the front lines for a bit?”

”Hmm...?”

”I'm scared somehow... We finally managed to convey our feelings, so I feel like something bad will happen again if we go to the front lines straight away... Maybe I'm just a little tired.”

I brushed Asuna's hair back silently and nodded so meekly that I surprised even myself.

”Yeah, you're right... I'm, a bit tired too...”

Even if the numbers didn't change, the battles that we fought day after day acc.u.mulated plenty of fatigue that couldn't be seen. That's especially the case for situations as extreme as today's. Even a strong bow will break if one pulled on it excessively. We definitely needed a break.

I felt the impulse that drove me to fight relentlessly drift further away. Right now, I only wanted to deepen the bond between the two of us.

I wrapped my arms around Asuna, then buried my face in her silky hair and spoke: ”On the northwestern part of the twenty-second floor, amongst the forests and lakes...there's a small village. It's a good place with no monsters. They sell a few cottages there. The two of us can move there together...and then... ”

Asuna looked at me as I stopped talking.

”Then...?”

I managed to move my frozen tongue and kept talking.

”...let's, let's get married.”

The perfect smile that Asuna showed me that moment, I would never forget it for the rest of my life.

”Okay...”

She nodded slightly as a large teardrop ran down her red cheeks.

Chapter 17.

There were four types of relations.h.i.+ps that two players could have within the SAO system.

First was two people who didn't really know each other. The second was friends. People who had listed each other as friends could send short messages to each other no matter where they were. They could also search for each other's locations by map.

The third was guild comrades. Apart from the above benefits, they also gained a slight increase in their stats when they partied with members of the same guild. However, they had to give up a bit of the Col they earned as a sort of tax to the guild.

Up until now, Asuna and I were friends and members of the same guild, despite the fact that we were taking a break from the guild. But we had decided to enter the last type of relations.h.i.+p.

Marriage- although getting married was very simple. Once one person sent the proposal message and the other person accepted it, then they were married. But the difference between marriage and friends or guild members was incomparably different.

Marriage in SAO meant the sharing of all information and items. One could see the other's stat window at will, and even their inventory windows had fused into one. In others words, it was entrusting one's most important safety nets to their partners. In Aincrad, where betrayals and fraud were common, few went as far as marriage even amongst the closest couples. Of course, another important reason was because of the extremely unbalanced male-female ratio.

The twenty-second floor was one of the most spa.r.s.ely populated areas in Aincrad. Since it was one of the lower floors, it was especially large; but most of it was taken up by the forests and the numerous lakes that were scattered around the area; therefore, the living area was so small that it could be called a hamlet. Monsters seldom appeared on the field, and since the difficulty level of the labyrinth was exceptionally low, the level was cleared in three days and most players didn't remember much of it.

Asuna and I decided to buy a small, round cottage within the woods on the twenty-second floor to live in. Even though it was small, it still cost a considerable amount of money to buy a house within SAO. Asuna offered to sell her house in Salemburg, but I was strongly against it, because selling such a perfectly furnished house would be far too regrettable. So in the end, we gathered all of our rare items and sold them with the help of Agil, which managed to provide just enough money to buy the house.

Although Agil said with a sad expression that we could use the second floor of his shop if we wanted, I thought that spending a newly-wed life within a merchant shop was far too tragic. Furthermore, I didn't even want to imagine what would happen once the fact that the all-famous Asuna had gotten married became known. I thought that we should be able to spend our days peacefully on the spa.r.s.ely populated twenty-second floor.

”Uwa- what a beautiful view!”

Asuna leaned forward, out of the window in our bedroom; although it was called the bedroom, there were only two rooms in the entire house.

The scenery outside really was breathtaking. This was near the edge of Aincrad, so one could see the glittering lakes, the green forest, and the wide-open skies all at once. Because we usually lived with a stone ceiling about one hundred meters above us, the open skies gave us an inexplicable feeling of freedom.

”Just don't fall off while you're looking at the scenery.”

I stopped organizing the household items and wrapped my arms around Asuna. This woman was now my wife- as I thought that, the warmth of bright sunlight in the winter, the marvelous feeling of wonder, as well as the surprise of how far we had gone all rushed me at once.

Until I became trapped in this game, I was just a kid who went to school and then back home without any goal in life. But now, the real world had become a faraway past.