19 Chapter 18

The float attached to the fishing line hadn't moved even once. Drowsiness invaded my consciousness as I watched the dancing sunlight reflected off the sparkling water ripples of the lake.

I made a huge yawn and pulled up the fishing line. Only an empty silver hook on the end shined in the light; the bait that I had put on it was gone.

Over ten days had passed since we moved to the 22nd floor. In order to gather food each day, I had erased my two-handed sword skill, which I trained briefly in a long time ago, and exchanged it for the fishing skill. I began to imitate Taikoubou [1] in fishing. But for some reason, I just couldn't catch anything. The training score had just passed 600, so I didn't expect any big catches, but I thought that I should have at least caught something by now. Instead, I simply spent day after day wasting the cases of bait that I bought in the village.

"Gah, this is so annoying..."

I muttered my complaints, tossed the fishing tackle aside, and then threw myself onto the ground. The wind that rushed over the water was icy cold, but the overcoat that Asuna had made me with her sewing skills kept me warm. Asuna was still in the middle of training that skill, thus the coat wasn't as good as clothing from the NPC stores. But since it was useable and kept me warm, there weren't any problems.

It was now «The month of the Cypress» in Aincrad, which meant it was November back in Japan. Although it was almost winter, fishing in SAO didn't have anything to do with seasons. Maybe it was simply because I had used up all my luck on getting my beautiful wife.

As my thoughts reached this, my entire being was filled with happiness, and a wide smile spread across my face. Then suddenly, a voice reached my ears.

"How did you do?"

I leapt up in surprise and saw a man standing there as I turned around.

He was wrapped in thick clothing, including a hat with ear flaps, and had fishing tackle in his hands just like me. But the surprising part was his age. No matter how I looked at it, he seemed at least fifty years old. The eyes behind metal framed glasses showed the age of a senior. Amongst the hardcore game addicts of SAO, it was extremely rare to see someone so old. Actually, I had never even seen one before. Maybe—?

"I'm not an NPC."

He smiled bitterly as if he had read my thoughts, and then slowly descended down the slope.

"S-Sorry. I was just wondering..."

"No, it's fine. It's understandable. I'm most probably the oldest player here."

His healthy body rocked as he gave a hearty "Wa-ha-ha" laugh.

"Excuse me."

He said as he sat down next to me. He took out a bait case from his hip, then awkwardly opened a pop-up menu, retrieved his fishing rod, and put the bait on it.

"My name is Nishida. I'm a fisherman here. In Japan, I worked as the head of maintenance for a company called the Tohto Broadband Connection. I'm sorry but I don't have my business cards with me."

He laughed again.

"Ah..."

I could mostly guess the reason for why he was in this game. Tohto was a network operator company that had been cooperating with Argus. They were responsible for taking care of the network that linked to the SAO servers.

"I'm Kirito. I moved here from the upper levels a while ago. Nishida oji-san... must have been... maintaining the SAO network connection...?"

"I was in charge of it."

Nishida said as he nodded. I looked at him with a complicated feeling. This meant that the man had become entangled in everything here because of his job.

"Haha, my superiors said there was no need to log on, but I can't be fully at ease until I see my work with my own eyes, and because of an old man's worries, I became like this."

He swung his rod with an amazingly smooth motion as he said this, and one could tell that he had the professional mastery of a skilled fisherman. He also seemed to like talking, as he kept on going without waiting for a response from me:

"Other than me, there are around twenty to thirty other old men who ended up here due to various reasons. Most of them are living safely in Starting City, but I enjoy this far more than simply eating three meals a day."

He lifted his fishing rod a little.

"I searched endlessly for good rivers and lakes, and finally came up all the way to a place like this."

"Oh, really... Well, there are almost no monsters on this floor."

Nishida just smiled at what I said without answering. Then he asked me:

"Well, are there any good spots on the upper floors?"

He asked.

"Hmmm... Well, the 61st floor was entirely a lake, well, more like a sea, and they say one could catch huge fish there."

"Ohh! I better go there sometime."

At this time, the float of his fishing rod began to quickly sink. Nishida wasted no time in pulling it in. It seemed that his fishing skill level was pretty high, as well as his actual ability to fish.

"Woah, it's huge!"

As I strained to lean forward, Nishida calmly reeled in the fishing line and quickly pulled up the shimmering blue fish. The fish flapped in his hands a few times and then vanished into his inventory.

"Amazing...!"

Nishida gave an embarrassed smile as he raised his head to reply:

"It's nothing. All you need to do here is raise your fishing skill."

Then he added while scratching his head:

"But, even if I can catch them, I still didn't know how to cook them properly... I wanted to eat sashimi or grilled fish, but I can't do anything without soy sauce."

"Ah... Yeah..."

I hesitated for a moment. We had moved here to avoid other people, but I figured that this person wouldn't really be interested in rumors and gossips.

"...I know of something that tasted a lot like soy sauce..."

"What!?"

Nishida leaned closer with his eyes shining behind his glasses.

As Asuna greeted my return and saw Nishida, her eyes went wide with surprise, but then she smiled and said:

"Welcome back. A guest?"

"Yeah, this is Nishida oji-san, a fisherman. And—"

My voice trailed off as I turned towards Nishida and was unsure of how to introduce Asuna. Then, Asuna smiled at the old fisherman and introduced herself:

"I'm his wife, Asuna. Welcome to our home."

She nodded confidently.

Nishida was staring at Asuna with his mouth open. Asuna was dressed in a plain long skirt, a hemp shirt with an apron, and a headscarf on top. She looked very different from the imposing warrior image of her as a KoB member, but her beauty didn't change.

After blinking several times, Nishida finally came to his senses and said:

"Ah, ahh, I apologize. I was mesmerized for a moment. I'm Nishida. Sorry for intruding upon you like this..."

He scratched his head and laughed.

Asuna applied all of her impressive cooking skills on the huge fish that Nishida had caught, and brought it onto the table after turning it into sashimi and grilled fish with soy sauce as a seasoning. As the aroma of the handmade soy sauce wafted through the house, Nishida widened his nostrils with a look of delight on his face.

It tasted more like a yellowtail with just the right amount of oil rather than a freshwater fish. According to Nishida, you needed to have at least 950 points in fishing to be able to catch it. After a brief conversation, the three of us focused on eating with our chopsticks.

The plates were empty within the blink of an eye, and Nishida sighed with an expression of bliss as he held a cup of hot tea in his hands.

"...Ah, that was very satisfying. Thank you. To think that soy sauce actually exists in this world..."

"Oh, it's handmade. You can take some back with you if you like it."

Asuna retrieved a small bottle from the kitchen and handed it over to Nishida. I thought that it was a good idea not to tell him the recipe. Asuna then smiled and said to the grateful Nishida:

"Don't worry about it; you also brought us such a good fish."

She then continued:

"Kirito-kun never caught anything."

At this sudden attack, I simply sipped on my tea in silence before responding:

"The lakes in this area are all too hard."

"No, not really. It's only the lake that Kirito-san was fishing in."

"Eh..."

What Nishida said made me fall speechless. Asuna grabbed her stomach and began to laugh without stop.

"Why did they set it like that...?"

"Well actually, in that lake..."

Nishida lowered his voice before continuing, so Asuna and I leaned forward.

"I think the local god lives there."

"Local god?"

As Asuna and I echoed each other, Nishida smiled, pushed back his glasses, and then kept talking:

"In the village item shop, there is one bait that's much more expensive than the others. I was curious about its capabilities, so I decided to buy it once to try out."

I swallowed instinctively.

"But I couldn't catch anything with that bait. After trying it out in various locations, I finally thought of taking a shot at that high-difficulty lake."

"Did, did you catch something...?"

"Well, something took the bait."

Nishida nodded deeply, and then his expression became one of regret:

"But I couldn't pull it out with my strength and ended up losing my fishing rod to it. I only managed to see its shadow during the last moments. It wasn't just huge; one could call it a monster, but in a different sense from the ones that appeared in the fields."

He spread his arms wide apart. This was probably the reason behind his meaningful smile when I said, "There are almost no monsters on this floor."

"Uwa, I want to see it!"

Asuna exclaimed as her eyes sparkled. Then, Nishida caught my gaze and said:

"So I have a proposal— Do you have confidence in your strength stats Kirito-san...?"

"Well, it should be alright..."

"Then how about we fish for it together?! I'll hold it until it bites and then leave the rest to you."

"Hmm, so we'll «Switch» while fishing... Would that be possible...?"

I tilted my head to the side.

"Let's try it, Kirito-kun! It sounds interesting!"

Asuna said this with "excitement" written all over her face. But, it was true that I was also quite interested.

"Then let's have a go at it."

As I answered, a smile spread across Nishida's face.

"That's the spirit, wa-ha-ha."

That night.

After exclaiming, "Coldcold," Asuna crawled into the bed, then pushed her body against mine and made a sound of satisfaction. She blinked sleepily and then smiled as if she had just thought of something.

"...There are so many different people here."

"He was interesting, wasn't he?"

"Yeah."

Asuna then suddenly removed her smile and muttered:

"Up until now, I had only fought on the upper floors. I had completely forgotten that there were people who lived normal lives..."

"I don't mean that we're special; but since we're on a high enough level to fight on the front-lines, I suppose it also means that we have an obligation to them."

"...I had never thought about it like that... I always felt that becoming stronger was just a way to survive."

"I think that a lot of people are going to be counting on you from now on. Of course, that includes me."

"...Except, with my personality, hearing these kind of expectations only makes me want to run away."

"Oh you."

As Asuna pouted in dissatisfaction, I stroked her hair and hoped for this life to continue for a while longer. For Nishida and the other players, we have to return to the front-lines at some point. But at least for now—

Based on the messages that Agil and Klein had sent me, I knew that they were having a hard time trying to clear the 75th floor. However, I believed from the bottom of my heart, that the most important thing to me right now was this life with Asuna.