Jaymes, January 3rd...
"Why are you putting your fish on Asuna's plate, Kirito? Do you not like fish?"
A sad smile on his face, Kirito faces Kizmel as he sets his fried fish on Asuna's plate. "No, I love fish,"
"Then why are you giving it all away?"
"Um…"
With a happy, fish-fed smile, Asuna answers for him. "Kirito did something bad, so he's paying for his crime."
"Oh... What did he do?"
"Well..."
"You see, I kind of invaded Asuna's personal space...er, meaning that I got a little too physically close for her comfort."
"I see... And what's your reason for not eating at all, Jaymes? Did you do the same to Koharu?"
Jaymes sighs as he glances at his plate, now under the ownership of Koharu. Too hungry to force a smile, he replies, "I made her worry, that's all."
"And don't forget you were flirting with some girl in the early hours of the morning."
At seven in the morning, Kirito and Jaymes were being punished severely. On Kirito's end, he woke up early to find his left hand had crossed the boundary set by Asuna, his left hand settled on her shoulder, and their legs intertwined. He could not do anything about her clinging to his body, so he resigned to his fate once Asuna woke up.
As for Jaymes, he happened to wake up a bit earlier than Kirito and couldn't return to sleep. Feeling restless, he decided to explore the castle on his own. He took a break in the courtyard when he received a message from Lisbeth. He didn't expect to have much conversation with her, but when he checked the time, he had been out longer than expected and missed more than one message from Koharu. At least she doesn't know of his late-night talk with Mito...
When both boys saw each other and their respective partner's scowls, they traded a silent message through their eyes. "We screwed up."
Kizmel couldn't directly sympathize with Jaymes' issue since she had never "flirted" before, but she did find some ground with Kirito. "It would seem that, compared to other dark elves, my persi…personal space…is rather narrow. Tilnel did like to cling to me, after all…We were practically joined at the hip when we were children, so I suppose I became used to the feeling. And this flirting thing, if that's what men and women do when they're trying to get the other's attention, Tilnel and her husband did it a lot back then."
It has been a while since Jaymes heard mention of Kizmel's sister and brother-in-law. Tilnel was a herbalist, while the other was a wolf handler. According to her, the two were killed by Forest Elves a month before she met Jaymes, Kirito, Koharu, and Asuna. That would have been around the time SAO launched. Ignoring that fact, Kizmel's memories may go back decades, knowing how long-lived elves are. However, he's used to such stories in games, serving the purpose of filling out a character's backstory and other details. There was no such person as Tilnel or the wolf handler, and they're artificial memories implanted into Kizmel to make her more relatable to players.
That's what Jaymes thought, but then Diavel died right before his eyes. Not that he was close to the blue knight, but he understood Kizmel's feelings.
At the same time, his view of Kizmel changed with time. Not her looks - not after his accidental encounter with her in the third-floor baths in the dark elf camp - but what she is. His entire life has been designed for him to inherit the family's technology company, especially the dream his father possesses for artificial intelligence.
AI has been on the rise since 2017, with great implementation in today's society. These AI have specific programs inserted into them, functioning in various capacities that fulfill their design. From phone shogi apps to economics to medical care, it wouldn't be hard to find an AI working with humans. But the dream of Jaymes' father has not been realized yet: the creation of AGI, or artificial general intelligence, better known as a bottom-up AI.
In theory, they differ from other AI (called top-down) because no specific function is tied to the AI. Instead, the AI learns from square one, much like humans. Once that development is achieved, then AI can be applied to a broader array of applications. Before that fateful moment on the third floor, Jaymes didn't think he'd see his dad's vision potentially fulfilled in a video game.
He also didn't expect he'll store all of his father's lectures on bottom-up AI in his rebellious memory.
Kizmel's mannerisms are so humanlike that if she didn't have an NPC indicator above her head, Jaymes would assume she was a player in her twenties. He's drinking herbal tea with the bane of his younger years, enthralled with her internal design. Why is it that the hundreds of NPCs they encountered behave like he would expect them to, but this single elven woman - and a couple of other elves - are different? How did Akihiko Kayaba and Argus develop something like this?
No, how did the Cardinal System develop this? The program that operates SAO to the point of self-reliance is not common knowledge, but while he may not have been keen on the tech industry, Jaymes heard plenty about SAO's operating system. After all, it's unlikely Kayaba and Argus are managing the game, but they did develop the Cardinal System and SAO around it. How much system stress and statistical data is running through Cardinal that it has room to develop a couple of high-functioning NPCs? In other words, how did they create the ability for Kizmel to converse with us on a humanlike level?
Jaymes only has three thoughts. The first is that the AI is learning as it goes. That correlates with how Kizmel learns new things from the humans, such as their language or when they speak out of terms as gamers. But Kizmel usually has sensible answers, so her AI has prior knowledge.
In lore, it makes sense humans and elves interacted prior to Aincrad's formation, but it wouldn't explain how Kizmel is how she is. It doesn't look like the two races interact nowadays. So the only other explanation is that the AI learned its ways another time.
There's a pressing discrepancy that Jaymes never brought up. While Kirito and Mito took on the Elf War Campaign in the beta as well as the official release, both were surprised by Kizmel's manners. That suggests that the beta version of the elven companions wasn't as high-functioning as they are now...which suggests Cardinal used data from the beta to create these NPCs. A thousand humans and their interactions with NPCs stockpiled dialogue data in the course of a month. Simulate that again by having the AIs "talk" to each other, and you could develop special AIs like Kizmel with outstanding conversation abilities.
That was done in two months. SAO now has ten times the players and must've amassed ten times the data. What if the same principle was applied to AI and had them learn and interact over a year, maybe a decade or two? Time would need to be simulated, of course, but to the AIs, time would pass normally. If the development of a human could be replicated in an AI, the dream of a true AGI is within reach.
"It's possible, Dad. The one you call Alice...is within our reach."
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After breakfast (Koharu did allow Jaymes to eat eventually), the party of six stocked up on supplies at the castle's supply station and then headed out of the castle gates to the desert. Moments after stepping onto the bridge between the castle and the desert, Kizmel took on a tired appearance. Her brown skin, only a few shades lighter than Jaymes, began to pale. Furthermore, a new icon appears beside Kizmel's HP bar, a person's head hanging their head. Jaymes would later learn this is the symbol of weakness, experienced by both Mito and Kirito as they fought snake priests on the tenth floor - the only floor Jaymes never reached in the beta.
The rest of the group noticed as well, being that Kizmel is in the lead. The girls offer their assistance, with Asuna holding out her arm, but the elf denies it and takes out a thin cape from a pouch held on her back. "...I thought...that I could last longer...but this is merely a reminder that we elves are powerless without the bounty of forest and water."
Kizmel switches her purple hiding cloak for the green and silver cape. Like the girls' capes, Kizmel's comes with a hood, which she pulls over her head. A buff replaces her debuff, and her features return to normal.
"Whew..." Seeing our stunned faces, Kizmel gives the others a proud grin. "This cape is a special treasure that has been kept within the kingdom since before the Great Separation. It is carefully sewn together from the precious leaves of the Holy Tree, which hardly ever fell, even in midwinter... Among all the castles and fortresses together, there are no more than ten of these capes remaining."
That explains the vein-like design the silver markings make and the leaf icon beside Kizmel's name. Curious as he is about the cape's properties, Jaymes holds back on tapping the elf's cape and revealing its mysteries.
After a moment of silence, Kirito speaks again. "Um, Kizmel, about our destination...I presume we're heading for the Key Shrine at the southernmost part of the sixth floor?"
"That is correct. I am impressed you knew the shrine was in the south."
"Oh, uh, well...the book of Mystic Scribing says it here. I was just confirming." Kirito's awkwardness is funny to watch, but he couldn't say he knew the key's location because he had done this quest in the past.
"I see. Your human magical charms are powerful, indeed."
"In that case, this will be quite the journey." Mito projects the map of the sixth floor for all the girls to see while Kirito and Jaymes look at Kirito's projection. "The southern slice of the map is split from us by two mountain ranges and the western slice of the landmass. Like before, we'll have to cross through the passageways within the mountain ranges."
"Was it like this for you as well, Mito?" Jaymes questions. The iliac-haired girl bobs her head up and down in affirmation.
"Yes, but in my case, we started in the swamps to the west." So the Forest Elf side of the campaign mirrors the Dark Elf side in major parts of the quests, especially where the keys are directly involved. That's good to know, not that it matters, but it means SAO doesn't swap important locations because a player chose a particular faction. But even so, this questline is not repeatable, so Jaymes will only know the other side from Mito's memory and future quest takers that join the Forest Elves.
His mood dampers, however, when he's reminded that the western side is a swamp land. The northwestern desert is a pain in itself, but the swamps were terrible in the beta. There's more water than walkable ground, so maneuvering through is a pain. The following two regions are just as horrible.
"That's going to be a serious challenge if we attempt to tackle them head-on, but if there happens to be some kind of secret shortcut known only to the dark elves, then..."
"Now, don't be tacky. I'm sorry, Kizmel, please ignore him."
Not paying much attention to Asuna's powerful glare to Kirito, Kizmel responds, "Hrmm. I do not remember hearing anything about a shortcut... But there is no need to cross the mountains at all."
"How is that so?" Koharu asks the grinning elf.
"We can save that surprise for later. Let's head to the center lake first."
"...You mean Lake Talpha?" Jaymes wants to say more because the star-shaped lake in the middle of the floor is dangerous. They hadn't told Asuna and Koharu, but some players sought to cross the lake in the beta to cut down on travel time between the five sections. But lurking in those depths is a powerful starfish creature that plunges anyone daring to a watery demise.
And SAO is not forgiving of anyone who experiences a demise of any sort.
Then again, Kizmel (and, by extension, Sword Art Online) wouldn't intentionally lead them to their deaths. No, the game is fair...a fact he has been reassuring himself since Diavel's death. It was a fact that constantly rang in his mind the moment the poisoned picks in Morte and Annihilator's possessions appeared. A fact he couldn't subjugate with comforting words from his partner and the passage of time.
If only the sole person who could relieve his worries was here, but then again, he hadn't seen his childhood friend Momiji in three years, and there's little chance she'd be here in SAO. She prefer action games and shooters in contrast to his preference for fantasy RPGs, but whenever she delved into his interest, she would only do so with him. So he'll have to rely on his partner and friends to keep his head straight for ninety-four more floors.
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After trekking through the canyons and hills of the desert region - only stopping once to eat a rare fruit off a cactus - the party reached the shining waters of Lake Talpha. The five mountain ranges border the star-shaped lake, all visible from their position, and a white beach around the lake's perimeter.
Koharu and Asuna were the most excited to be at the lake's shores, but they were warned against stepping in the water; the starfish creature called Ophiometus made its way to the official release, and Kizmel warned about entering the waters. Mito, who was less enthused about being here than Jaymes, bears a pale appearance. Maybe she has bad memories of Lake Talpha... Oh.
Kizmel then took out a small vial, no bigger than her thumb, and applied a liquid to the soles of everyone's shoes; when asked to present his, Kirito fell over on the sand when he stretched his right leg out. After a good laugh, the girls displayed a sense of athleticism by flexing their legs behind them. Not trusting his sense of balance, Jaymes removed his boots and put them back on after they were sprinkled with the mysterious liquid.
After coating her boots, Kizmel returned the bottle to her pouch and walked to the water. She didn't explain much, but the demonstration was enough to get the others to marvel at her feet standing on top of the water's surface. "Come. Step slowly onto the water."
The humans lined up where the fluctuating end of the tide meets the beach, each apprehensive about following Kizmel. Voicing out their biggest concern, Kirito says, "So, Kizmel, if we walk on the surface of the water, the starfish won't appear?"
"I guarantee it. However..."
"Yes?"
"The Droplets of Villi charm on your boots will only take effect when stepping softly. If you run or leap, you will break the surface and lose the effect. Then the starfish will notice you...so do take care not to lose your cool."
Jaymes gets the feeling that statement was pointed at the boys, but he didn't need to be told twice. The Droplets of Villi seem to work, and it is better to cross the lake than the swamps and two mountain ranges to the west. As long as they walk across the lake, it should be fine, right? No running, no leaping, no monstrous starfish, no one - human or elf - dies.
"Just to get this out there, since I never encountered Ophiometrus...are we talking about a Kraken or Jaws type of situation? Do we see only the tentacles or the whole beast?"
"J-Just the tent-tentacles." Mito fearfully studders.
"...Great, so we can't beat it by fighting." Jaymes sighs and steps forward. Keeping his eyes on Kizmel, he walks into the water, murmuring, "Faith of a mustard seed... Don't be afraid. Don't be a Peter. Don't be a Peter... Ah." Seven steps later, he finds himself at Kizmel's side, his feet light and buoyant on the lake's surface. Exhaling, he beckons the others to follow.
Kirito makes the trek second, but the girls are hesitant. More specifically, Mito hesitates to cross the dangerous body of water while Koharu and Asuna take their first step on the water's surface. Noticing this, Asuna turns around and extends her hand to her real-life friend. "It's okay, Mito. We just have to walk. And even if we do fall, I have an ace up my sleeve. Or up my pant leg?"
"Up...your pant leg?"
"Come, Mito," says Koharu as she extends her hand out. "We'll walk together, and we won't let go. Right, Asuna?"
"Yeah."
Mito fidgets in place for a moment, then takes the girls' hands. "...Well, all right. But if you let go, I'm taking you both with me. I'm telling you, dying this way is not fun." Jaymes seriously wonders what happened back then to Mito that she's deathly afraid of the starfish. Did it get weird with the tentacles? No, SAO is rated for teenagers fourteen and over, so there's no way it'd get that weird...but then again, most girls wear light armor. Mito, Asuna, and Koharu are no exceptions, so Jaymes can only imagine how discomforting it must be for them, and anyone regardless of sex, to experience death by a tentacle, perverted or not.
Pleased with the humans, Kizmel turns around and continues walking on the lake, the boys right behind her, the human girls rounding out the back. It got easier to walk on the surface the further out they got, much like moving a joystick slightly forward to walk a character in traditional video games.
But after twenty meters of walking carefully, even Jaymes got tired of it. Walking on water is cool and biblical and all, but running would be more fun. "Shame we can't do more than walk on the surface."
"Oh yeah…when we fought Wythege the Hippocampus on the fourth floor, was this charm the reason that Viscount Yofilis didn't sink into the water?"
"Ohhh... But hang on, wasn't he running like crazy over the surface?"
"Asuna's guess is half right," Kizmel says, looking over her shoulder to answer them. "The liquid I dripped on the soles of our shoes is a valuable elixir that can only be made by villi—water spirits, undine maidens. But Viscount Yofilis's shoes are woven with villi hair and will never sink into the water."
"Hair? Y-you don't mean that he killed the spirit and chopped off its hair, right?"
"Never!" Kizmel's feet stomp the water enough to create a splash but not to sink her. In a quieter tone, she continues, "To us elves, the undines, including the villi, are just as sacred as the dryads of the forest. They are our neighbors and our protectors…If we consider cutting down a living tree or despoiling a clear brook as breaking taboo, then killing a villi herself would be calling down a curse upon all elfkind."
Jaymes chuckles and lightly slugs KIrito on the shoulder. "Jeez, Kirito, just because the count was scary doesn't mean he's a monster."
"I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have suggested such a thing…But then, how did the viscount get such valuable shoes?"
Kizmel faces forward and shakes her head with minute movements that it is almost imperceptible. "I do not know the details. But if rumor is to be believed...in the long-distant past, the viscount and a villi maiden...no. I should not speak of uncertain things. Please pretend you did not hear this." No one pursued the topic any further.
Undines are a broad class of aquatic, female humanoid creatures such as water nymphs, mermaids, and the villi. Facing the distant shoreline as they walk across the lake's center, Jaymes groans with slight disappointment. "...Kirito, this game has no undines, right?"
"I don't recall coming across any of those kinds of mon...uh, beings."
"Guess I'll never meet a beautiful undine in my life." Of course, there's no way Jaymes would know he would one day meet a beautiful undine...and she's standing right behind him.
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The south region looks as untouched by the developers as the rest of the sixth floor. The domain is a giant natural cave system. Most of the area is under the surface, and few areas allow sight of the underside of the seventh floor. The swampland might be the worst place on the sixth floor, but the caves gave its run for the money, in Jaymes' opinion.
They had made it to the beach without trouble. Mito is the most relieved of the six, and Jaymes suggests they take a small break in consideration of her feelings. They all huddle together to rest on the beach.
"Well...there's a first for everything. That was rather exhilarating," the elven knight remarks.
"Wait, that was your first time walking across the lake, too, Kizmel?"
"But of course. I have never set foot outside of Castle Galey here."
"Then you're saying...you don't know the location of the underground maze that holds the key?"
In response to Kirito's question, Kizmel takes a rolled parchment from a long, thin case on her belt, presenting it to us. "I have not been there, but I know the way." Rolling out the paper reveals it is a map of the southern region in magnificent detail. A red trail creates a route from the beach through the cave system to a red X that must mark the key's location.
"Oh, so you do have a map. So this is the lake, and this is our destination...and what's this mark for? it looks like an insect head." Asuna points to the bottom of the map where a mark of said description is drawn.
It's Koharu's turn to pale as her emerald eyes lose their light. "Please don't say there's a giant insect in the caves."
"That's correct," Kizmel says and nods to Koharu. "Lurking in the caverns is a giant centipede covered in rocky armor. Fortunately, we need not cross its path, but I hear tell of many humans who have wandered into its lair and paid the ultimate price."
"Gr-great, we don't have to encounter it..."
"Sheesh... Starfish, centipedes - this place has everything. I just hope there are no millipedes or ganymedes."
"Actually there's-"
"No, Jaymes, no! Don't joke about this!" Koharu's outburst at Jaymes shuts him up. However, he wouldn't make fun of Koharu by saying there are "millipedes" and "ganymedes" creatures in the caverns - he simply wanted to correct Asuna in saying "ganymedes" was a moon. In the beta, that wasn't the case, and by extension, the centipede creature did not exist either. The field boss of the sixth floor lingered in the fifth area, and it was a plant-type creature. He knew this because that was the first time Jaymes fought alongside with the front liners of the SAO beta.
He took the Last Attack bonus, too, then disappeared until the next floor, deciding to continue straying away from the main bosses before the official release.
Field bosses have changed before, and it is bound to happen again. But until now, either field bosses were replaced (like the second floor's Bullous Bow subbed for Nato the Taurus Colonel, moved to the floor labyrinth's boss fight along with General Baran and the newly-added King Asterius), changed to fit the floor's new theme (like how the Archelon of the fourth floor went from giant tortoise to sea turtle) or remained the same. There hasn't been an addition to the number of field bosses.
This means the front runners are operating on old information as usual. If they encounter the centipede unknowingly...Quietly Jaymes directs himself to the MESSAGES tab of his main menu, ignoring the comment Kirito made and the women scouring the map. He could send a message to Argo, but he doesn't want to pay for this knowledge, not when he has insiders in both ALS and DKB.
He chooses the one most likely to respond to him. "Hey, Liten. Important question: where is the front lines rn?"
She must not be busy fighting right now, for she responds half a minute later. "Jaymes! Nice to hear from you! Um, I guess I can tell you this, we're planning to attempt the dungeon leading into the third area tonight."
One area per day? They started in the forest area on the first, and they entered the wasteland yesterday. Jaymes' party skipped over it, but there's a small town named Ararro in the wasteland. From his experience, there's not much there to begin with, so it makes sense that Lind and Kibaou are moving forward. The swamps is uninhabited, and the next human town is here in the fourth area to the south. Unfortunately, the large city of Goskai is close to the centipede.
"Got it. Don't question how, but we're in the fourth area right now. Inform Kibaou of a new field boss near the town of Goskai in the fourth area, and if he asks how you know, say my name. He trusts me more than he does Kirito publicly. Send this info to your beloved Shivata as well."
With a chuckle, Jaymes closes his menu and turns to the others. Apparently, he and Kirito were caught sending messages - "the charm of Far Scribing," as Kizmel calls it - and while the others converse about that, he's met with the hard stare of Koharu. Her earlier doomed look is gone.
"Who were you talking to?"
The morning was still fresh in his head. He swallows his fear and mutters, "Liten. I was warning her of the centipede, that's all, and told her to let both guilds know... Nothing weird, okay."
"Hmmm... No, you made fun of her too, didn't you?" Jaymes' jaw drops in shock, which brings a smile to Koharu's face. She caught him red-handed! How? "Hehe, got you. But thanks for warning her and the guilds. I think Kirito did something like that too."
"Oh. Maybe he told Argo." Well, if Kibaou and Lind are foolish enough not to listen to Liten via Jaymes' words, they'll follow whatever Argo says.
"What was it that N'ltzahh the fallen elf said on the fourth floor?" Kizmel states out of the blue - well, not out of the blue. Jaymes just entered the conversation of Mystic Scribing and Far Scribing at this moment in time. Hearing the fearsome Fallen Elf's name is more than enough to make any other conversation less important. "When they have all the keys and open the doors to the Sanctuary, the greatest magic of humankind will vanish, correct?"
"Oh...he did say that."Jaymes' face loses color, remembering the gondola adventure from the town of Rovia. That night, they stalked a ship from town to a dungeon, and during their investigation of human-Fallen Elf relations, they first witnessed the general and his blackened indicator. He, Koharu, and Mito were on the staircase leading down to the warehouse, hiding in the darkness. Kirito and Asuna were cramped in a box at the time, too close for anyone's comfort to the powerful elf.
With him was the foreman Eddhu and the aide Kysarah. N'tlzahh spoke those words to Kysarah. In response to those words, Kysarah said their triumph grew ever closer.
At the time, everyone was deathly afraid of the encounter, and the more critical information learned was the impending assault by the Forest Elves. They had not thought to think what N'tlzahh meant since then. But there's not like there's an answer to their questions.
The "greatest magic" to humanity can't be the Mystic and Far Scribing abilities that awe Kizmel so much because human NPCs cannot do it. It has to be something else. But what could that be? And why is the Fallen Elves after the humans, not the other elven groups? Considering how the campaign begins with players siding with an elf of their choice and advancing alongside that faction, it can be said the Dark and Forest Elves have no animosity toward humanity. Why would the Fallen Elves hate humans?
"I believe we've had enough of a rest. I'd like to finish and return to the castle while it's light out," Kizmel states.
"And I'd like to get out of the caverns as fast as possible in case the centipede decides to move far," Koharu announces.
"A-And I would like not to cross the lake when it's dark out," Mito remarks.
"Hurry up, boys." Asuna snorts.
As the women advance towards an opening in the tall rock face nearby, Jaymes glances at Kirito. "Let's go before we do something else wrong."
"R-Right."