"Sorry to keep you waiting so long... He should be here very soon."

After Kirito gave his fifth or sixth apology, I said, "It's cool, don't worry about it," and took a sip of piña colada. I savored the creamy coconut and refreshing pineapple flavors as they slid over my tongue, then the punch of the rum base hit my throat. Of course these were all VR sensations.

This rooftop bar sat on the third-tallest building in SBC Glocken. It had the best view, and its food and drinks were delicious, yet you could only get a pass to enter if you cleared a succession of high-difficulty quests, so it was usually closed, even on weekends. We sat at a booth that overlooked the western side of the city. We'd been chatting for over an hour already, but our NPC bartender didn't seem to mind at all.

It was just me, ArFA-Sys, Kureha, Kirito, Asuna, and Yui. A party celebrating the boss kill was to be held at five that evening in the governor-general's event hall. Itsuki, Zeliska, and the others were going to make appearances there, but Kirito said he needed to talk to me before then.

And the reason why our plans had been delayed by an hour was because the seventh member of our party had yet to arrive. I was going to stay dived-in through the party anyway, so I didn't mind at all, but Kirito's endless apologies were starting to make me feel bad.

Perhaps thinking the same thing as me, ArFA-Sys pushed the plate of food she had ordered toward Kirito.

"Hey, Kirito, this Sincronizada is really good!　You should have one!"

"Th-Thanks. I'll take one..."

Kirito took a Sincronizada—which was apparently ham and cheese wrapped in a tortilla and griddled—and chomped it with a crunch.

Then the elevator door opened, and in ran a person.

"Whoa, sorry I'm late, everybody. My other thing ran longer than expected."

Running towards us as he apologized was a player I didn't think I had ever met before. He was tall, with long blue hair tied behind his neck. His fashionable attire included a robe—an unusual choice for GGO. The name by his HP bar was Chrysheight—I wasn't sure how to pronounce that, but my question went away two seconds later:

"Took you long enough, Chrysheight!"

When Kirito snapped sternly at the young man, he bowed his head apologetically, headed over to the bar while making a knife-twirling gesture with his hand, ordered a Gin Rickey from the bartender, then came over to our table. He slid into the empty spot beside Kirito and exhaled heavily.

"Wow, I really am sorry. I was the one who set this all up and look how late I am."

Chrysheight's second apology was met with a judgmental stare from Kirito.

"Seriously. You're paying for all of this, okay?"

"What?! But I just made this character and don't have the funds..."

"Then I'll spot you, but you're paying it back in 10 days with 10-percent interest."

"I-Isn't that a little steep? You're more than a loan shark. Like, a loan killer whale?　No, more like a loan behemoth...?"

The rest of us stared in a dumbfounded at the fast-paced quip war, and Asuna giggled behind her hand.

Meanwhile, the Gin Rickey arrived in a glass. Chrysheight gulped it down until it was half-gone, then he took another long breath.

He set his glass on the table and turned forward to look at me. The eyes behind his glasses looked soft at first glance, but they held a keen sharpness that seemed to penetrate right into my brain. My spine shot to attention reflexively.

Chrysheight smiled, trying to relieve my tension, and stuck out his tongue.

"So you're the one who defeated that irregular boss...the Unital King. Thanks."

Kureha, ArFA-Sys, and I all cocked our heads. Undaunted, ArFA-Sys asked him:

“Chrysheight, is that the giant man's formal name?　It wasn't registered anywhere in the system."

"Oh, right, well, it's not his official name. It was just silly to keep calling him 'big guy' or 'the giant,' so I gave him a code name. It means something like 'the single king.' After all, he showed up in every IP that uses The Seed Connector."

"Aha, now I understand. From now on, I shall also call him Unital King, or "Una-Kin" for short!"

Isn't that a bit too short?　I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought that, but nobody else interjected.

Getting my mind back on track, I turned back to Chrysheight, and spoke directly:

"While it's true that ArFA-Sys and I smashed the giant's weakness, Kirito's team devised the strategy, and without all the buff assistance from everyone else, we couldn't have done all that damage."

Kirito cut in immediately after:

"No, no, no, the moment Una-Kin blasted us away, I thought we'd failed to hit the 100th bar. But you kept your cool, didn't give up, and used your UFG to hit the spot right on target. It takes a real master to stay frosty and pull off a stunt like that."

"When I landed on the ground, I thought my heart was gonna fly out of my mouth."

Asuna, Yui, and Kureha all giggled in amusement at my reply. I softened my frown slightly for a moment, then I drew my lips back into a tight line and glared lightly at Kirito.

"I'm still mad at you, Kirito. How could you forget to find a safe way for me and ArFA-Sys to land?"

"Yeah, I really am sorry about that, for real. I made a mental note that we needed to figure out who was catching you guys..."

"I just assumed you'd already assigned those roles."

Asuna sounded frustrated. Yui didn't miss a moment in adding her comment:

"My Daddy's memory bank loses 30-percent of its data 10 minutes after input!"

It was such a harsh zinger that this time, everyone laughed (except Kirito.) We survived the fall, so I wasn't going to complain any further, but I did think he deserved a little pushback. Silica and Seven had used wind magic to create cushions that prevented us from falling fast, and in the end, Itsuki caught both me and ArFA-Sys. That made three debts I owed Itsuki.

I took a gulp of piña colada for a mental reset, then I looked at Chrysheight again.

"So...are you an admin for one of these VRMMOs?"

"Oh, what makes you think that?"

"You called the Unital King an irregular boss. I figured only people in the know could refer to him that way with such confidence."

"Ah...that's fair. We hadn't publicly announced that it was a legit guerrilla event."

As Chrysheight gave a satisfied nod, Kureha blurted out, unable to contain herself any longer:

"So, what exactly was all that?"

"First, I have to clarify that I am not an admin. I just research the full-dive echo system used in The Seed Connector. I'm conducting an investigation on the event that just happened."

"It's not research, it's an inspection."

Chrysheight laughed off Kirito's correction and continued.

"Now, to answer your question, based off the information we currently have, we can determine that event was not legit. To pull that sort of thing off, they would need to find a way of secretly connecting all the VRMMOs on The Seed Connector. But Zaskar, who admins GGO, and Ymir, who admins ALO, didn't pick up on any of that intel. In fact, every operator is in chaos and running major damage control trying to deal with the fallout."

"...So, does this mean somebody...or some group hacked into The Seed Connector?"

Asuna asked, her brows lowered into a frown. I had also thought that was the only possible answer, but Chrysheight shook his head no.

"There were no traces of hacking. A large, decentralized system configures The Seed Connector used in all VRMMOs. Even if you could hack into one of those servers...or connect to the system with mal intent, that alone still wouldn't be enough to take over the entire network. Besides, if you did successfully hack the system, would you really just run some guerrilla event?　Our hacker could have exchanged in-game currency for dollars or yen and embezzled their heart out."

"......"

Everyone shut their mouths solemnly (except ArFA-Sys, who was munching on her enchilada). I got the feeling this still could've been an ingenious vanity crime. But if that were the case, somebody would've claimed responsibility by now.

With an expert hand, Chrysheight squeezed the wedge of lime stuck on the edge of his glass and chugged the rest of his Gin Rickey. He smiled into the empty glass, as if he had only just noticed how delicious it was, then gently returned it to its coaster.

Kirito took a gulp of his own mojito before changing up his tone a little and asking:

"Kiku..I mean, Chrysheight, what does what you just told us have to do with what you forced Yui to do?"

"I don't really like the phrasing of that question... Remember, you asked me to do it, Kirito."

"Wh-What did he make Yui do?"

Kureha asked, sounding and looking a bit hesitant. Yui answered for herself:

"While that event was taking place, I was giving Daddy's AmuSphere a full monitoring. I checked the connection, memory and storage, the CPU, and the operating status of the BMI element matrix."

"W-Wow... So that's where you were. Sounds like you had a lot of work on your hands. Good job, Yui!"

Yui sheepishly giggled at Kureha's praise, brought her cup to her lips with both hands, and gulped down the warm milk. Perhaps feeling a rare bite of the competitive bug, ArFA-Sys said, "Well I want to monitor Master's AmuSphere, too!" I assured her, "We'll take care of that soon" to calm her, then looked backed over at Yui.

She lowered her cup, glanced at Kirito, then resumed speaking.

"To start from the conclusion, when we were in that event field, Daddy's AmuSphere's BMI Matrix, which ordinarily only works at about 70-percent capacity maximum, ran at over 90-percent capacity. The power output from the AmuSphere was insufficient to cause any brain damage, but it definitely was an anomaly.

"Um, sorry, but...what's a BMI Matrix?"

When I asked her to clarify the unfamiliar term, Yui blinked her intelligent black eyes and smiled.

"BMI stands for Brain Machine Interface. And the aggregate microdevice spread throughout the AmuSphere that connects with a user's brain to transfer data is called the BMI Matrix."

"I see...so you're saying that device worked at higher capacity than normal."

Despite my confident reply, I really could not imagine what exactly had taken place in Kirito's AmuSphere. But there was a question even more relevant than that.

Asuna voiced my concern:

"Hey, Yui, did this phenomenon only occur in Kirito's AmuSphere?　Or was it..."

"Yes, this is mere conjecture from the increase in traffic, but I believe the same phenomenon occurred in the AmuSpheres of every player who transferred to that field."

"Whoa, then it happened to me too?!"

Kureha's eyes looked upwards, though of course she could not see the AmuSphere on her head.

Silence fell over the table again, which Chrysheight then broke:

"By the way, Yui, which part of the matrix was more active? Sending or receiving?"

"The receiving end, overwhelmingly."

"In other words...it was reading data it ordinarily would not need to read."

Chrysheight murmured, folding his hands together above the table and resting his chin on them. The afternoon sun reflected off his glasses, making it difficult to read his expression.

Eventually, Kirito quietly broke the silence:

"When I was in that field, my avatar's reaction time didn't really change much. Which means the additional data input was not movement commands. It was thoughts, feelings...or maybe..."

I thought Kirito's lips mouthed the word "memories" after that, but I wasn't certain.

I looked away from the group, gazing at the world of GGO beyond the thin handrail.

The Old South Area remained the same as before, bathing in the dim light of the sun, with a few thin streaks of sand dancing in the air. Only a day had passed, yet the epic battle was starting to feel like it was all a daydream. I glanced down at my hand. My palm still felt the recoil from my gun the moment I used Quickshot to shoot the Unital King's crown.

"Now that you mention it..."

Kirito lifted his head and looked straight at me.

"I fell right after it happened, so I still don't know—what was the reward?　The giant said the player that destroyed the crown would receive everything, right?"

"Ohh, right..."

As Kureha and Asuna at my side and diagonal respectively fell into giggles, I answered:

"Actually, I owe you an apology, Kirito..."

[The end]