[The Next Day] Part 2

Since I had a bit of free time, we managed to finish up both translating and going through editing hell for part 2 of The Next Day side story? What better way to start a new month than with a healthy dose of Argo?

While Part 1 was mostly just Kirito and Argo chatting about stuff and didn't really have any actual action, Part 2 introduces some actual plot: Kirito and Argo going questing... though there's still a whole lot of chatting anyways... and then Kirito deciding to do a summary of volume 1 for a good page or two for some unfathomable reason... guess Kawahara had a page quota to meet?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the release. If you have any suggestions/requests for what to work on, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through Twitter/Discord/Email.

Any feedback is appreciated.

-Gsimenas

Credits

Raws: Celest
Translation: Gsimenas
Editing: Gsimenas, Kaantantr

Translation (choice/nuance) comments:

• Argo has a speech quirk wherein she changes the last kana (usually a sentence ending particle) in her sentence to katakana, when it would normally be written in hiragana. This is accounted for by emphasising the final letter in her sentence in the translation (making it capitalised). Argo also speaks in boyish tone, so we made her language more casual.
• Japanese people frequently abbreviate the word "クエスト" (kuesuto = "quest") to just "クエ" (kue = "que" or "Q"). Since the characters use both versions of this word, I chose to translate the shorter one as "q'st".
• "tantalising meat on its bones" - Argo's phrase was "high calorie" (ハイカロリー, hai karorī) in the original text. We decided to localise her phrase to something more natural for English speakers.
• "once a quest is accepted, anyone who joins the party later on can still get credit for it" - for clarity, the original phrase was "クエストって受けてからパーティー組んでも共有されるよな", which literally means "after a quest is accepted, you can share it with people you form a party with". As in, joining a party grants access to the party's quests, even if the player himself hasn't taken on that particular quest themselves. I went with "can still get credit (for the quest), as it's the best translation for the phrase that I could come up with, but I'm not entirely convinced that it makes the intended meaning clear enough.
• "sent the smirking info broker an invite" - technically, the original text used "invite message" (インバイトメッセージ) rather than simply "invite", but that's not how English works.
• "The plot for 《The Stray Calf》 quest" - the original text used the word "ストーリー (sutōrī) for "plot". But the Japanese use that particular English word more broadly to mean "plot" or "narrative", so we just changed it to "plot" for clarity.
• "Boyo" - technically, Argo just used the word 少年 (shounen), which is just a generic word for "young (man)" or "boy". Usually, I'd reserve "boyo" for the word "坊や" (bouya) instances (the word also means "boy", but is used with either a familiar/very friendly, or a derogatory connotation), but since Argo was definitely being sassy with her usage of the word shounen to accent her big-sis persona, I decided to make an exception and use "boyo" for her instances of "shounen"
• "Big Sis" - Argo calls herself "オネーサン" (onee-san in katakana) in these instances. After a discussion with my editor, we decided to localise the word in our translation.
• "I ain't no boyo! And you ain't no Big Sis either!" - Kirito switched to coarse speech out of indignation in this instance.
• "Cor" is the currency used in Aincrad. It stands for "Coin of the Radius", where "Radius" is a reference to Aincrad (which in turn is short for "An Incarnating Radius"). Note that the anime mistyped "Cor" as "Col", and all official translations went with that mistranslation.
• "Forest wasp" (森バチ, moribachi) vs "Forest Wasp" (フォレスト・ワスプ, Foresuto Wasupu) - when non-capitalised, the characters are using generic descriptors/common nouns to refer to the monster; when the first letters capitalised, the characters are using the monster's official proper name.
• Kirito uses two different words for "beginning/triggering" a skill: "立ち上げる" (tachiageru) and 発動 (hatsudou). Based on context, the former seems to imply triggering the light/sound effect that signifies the skill being in stand-by mode and ready to use; the latter seems to specifically refer to the Sword Skill being in motion.
• "early-bolters" - the original phrase was "スタートダッシュ" (sutāto dasshu). See part 1 notes for why we decided on changing this phrase to "early-bolters".
• In SAO skill lingo, the word "スキル" (sukiru, i.e. "skill" in katakanised English) refers to either character skills that take up skill slots (e.g., One-Handed Sword, Cooking, etc.), or is a short hand for "Sword Skill". On the other hand, when people are referring to a particular Sword Skill (e.g., Reaver, Slant), the word "技" (waza) is used instead - I translate it as "technique" to help differentiate it from "スキル" instances.
• The Japanese word for "high-five" is "ハイタッチ" (hai tacchi) or "high-touch". Since no one would understand what that Ingurisshu-ism means, we changed it to the proper English terminology.
• "Inner Area" (圏内) and "Outer Field" (圏外) are SAO-specific terms that refer to being inside/outside the Anti-Criminal Code effect area (basically, the in-town safe area), where players are protected from any and all forms of harm and attacks. These are the specific terms in English that players see on their UI whenever they enter/leave town, which is why I used these odd phrasings (Kawahara gave them in English in the original novel, so I didn't come up with the translations).
• "nyuhspaper" - Kirito was so shocked by Argo's answer that he forgot to change his hiragana into actual kanji. While Argo said "newspaper" as "新聞", Kirito parotted it back as "しんぶん" in hiragana.

Markup explanation:

• Itallics mark text that was written in katakana English (I only highlighted the cases where the author uses both English and actual Japanese equivalents for the same thing, or when I needed to emphasise that an English word is used there).
• Ｆｕｌｌ－ｗｉｄｔｈ text indicates non-Japanese text that was written in the Latin/English alphabet, rather than katakana. Basically, what you see is exactly how it's written in the raw.
• Courier font indicates that the original word was written in kana for emphasis (when such a word usually isn't written in kana)
• Comic sans indicates emphasis added by myself when I needed to stress something to get the meaning across properly.
• In some instances, the original text used furigana. In cases where the furigana wasn't exact match for the underlying text (usually when the author uses furigana to translate or describe foreign words in Japanese), I maintained the furigana format. Furigana text should be read as follows: #Japanese translation/description of what the term/name means#(What was actually said) (e.g. #cat fairy race#(Cait Sith) - "Cait Sith" is what was actually said in text, while "cat fairy race" is just a brief description of what Cait Sith are to help differentiate between the different fairies.
• Single quotation marks (') are quotes that weren't in the original text but were added for the convenience of English speakers to mark implied quotations. I used it mostly to separate Kirito's internal monologue from his narration, as well as mark sound effects and so on. Actual dialogue lines or quotations (with 「」 punctuation marks) within a narration line are indicated with the usual double (") quotation marks.

Part 1

Index

Part 3

Part 2

By the time I finished up with more or less all of my shopping needs at the Village of Horunka's plaza, it was already eight-thirty in the morning.

I've yet to see any other players in the village aside from me……though, if any players had left the Town of Beginnings earlier this morning, they'd probably show up here around noon or so. I don't exactly have anything against encountering other players, but since I'm not in the mood to form a party with anyone else for the time being, it would be a hassle if anyone were to approach me to join them.

I figured I should take up all the quests in the village that I can and then go through them one after another until I run out of my stock of potions, so I relied on my memories from the beta to set off on my way.

And so, I chatted up every last quest ＮＰＣ scattered around the plaza, the village houses, the back alleys, and accepted all of their errands. While the great majority of them were the garden-variety types of jobs: 《Defeat several ○○ monsters》, or 《Go and collect several ×× mats》 and stuff like that, I should be able to find a rather hassly──but equally rewarding quest at a farm on the outskirts of the village, as I recalled.

If this were a farm in the real world, you'd expect a more farmlike stench hanging in the air, unless the farm you were visiting was almost entirely transformed into a tourist attraction, but all I could smell here was the aroma of dried grass. As I approached the small cattle barn, I found a middle-aged man in a straw hat holding a pitchfork in one hand, who was repeatedly looking up to the sky with a blatantly-obvious troubled expression or shaking his head with a sigh.

After confirming the presence of the golden 【！】 mark over his straw hat that signified his status as a quest ＮＰＣ, I approached the man and was about to call out to him.

However, just before I could.

"OoI, hold uP, hold uP!"

Hearing a familiar voice behind me, I turned around with a jerk.

There I found a small-statured player with a sand-yellow hood on her head running up to me; she was so accustomed to carrying herself in the virtual world that I could barely even hear her footsteps. Although the Colour Cursor over her head did not display any name, I was sure this was the very same info broker I had just parted ways with, no doubt about it.

"……You again… What do you want with me this time?"

When Argo the Info Broker heard the question I posed, a brazen grin peeked out under her hood from where she had stopped in front of me.

"Good thing I came over to check things out 'ere just in case, maN. If yer doin' this q'st, lemme in on the action, toO."

"What now?"

Although my displeasure at the notion was glaringly obvious from the interjection I accidentally let slip, it didn't seem to perturb Argo in the slightest, as she prattled on.

"Amongst all the quests ya can get in Horunka, this q'st 'ere's only second to the Annblade q'st in terms of tantalising meat on its bones, remembeR? So, it wouldn't ‘xactly come as a shocker to find a cooldown timer slapped on it, toO. Or are ya gonna tell me ya don't give a damn that I'll be forced to wait fer hours on end if it means ya manage to snap it up fer yerself now, hmM?" "W-well, I never said that……"

Although I argued back to save face, my heart was actually singing a different tune. While there are several ground rules to follow in ＭＭＯＲＰＧs, one stands out the most: 《first come, first served》. Whoever finds rare items first gets to call dibs on snagging them, whoever gets the first hit on a rare monster gets to call dibs on beating them, and whoever takes up a quest with a cooldown timer gets to call dibs on doing them first.

But given the circumstances, we should focus on ensuring the survival of as many players as possible over adhering to rules and manners, and Argo is trying to compile a guidebook to that very end——

……Fine. We'll need to be in a party, so I'll…"

I halted my train of thought when I realised something. There's no point in going out of my way to form a party with her unless this quest actually does have a cooldown timer.

"As I recall, once a quest is accepted, anyone who joins the party later on can still get credit for it. Let's do it like this: I'll take up the quest for myself first and if it does turn out that there's a cooldown timer on it, I'll party up with you. If not, we'll work on it separately. That should be reasonable enough?"

"Oh fine, suit yourselF. Just hurry up 'n get it over with, maN."

Although I did pick up on some faint signs that Argo wasn't exactly pleased with my idea, it was in my own best interest to get this over with quickly, too.

I turned back to the middle-aged man in a straw hat and called out to him: "Hello there, is something bothering you?". Just like back in the beta, the man in turn responded: "One of my calves went missing. I think it must have wandered into the prairie beyond the forest to the east; mind bringing it back for me before it gets attacked by monsters?", so I agreed right away.

Just then, I received a quest log change message and the 【！】 mark above the man's head turned into a 【？】 mark to designate a quest in progress. From Argo's perspective, however, an【！】 mark should have popped back up for her if there was no cooldown timer slapped onto the quest.

"……Well?"

When I turned around to ask my question, Argo shrugged her shoulders with an implicit "told ya so".

"Not gettin' any marks herE."

Shoving me aside, she approached the man——.

"SaY, pops, got anythin' troublin' ya, hmM?"

In turn, the man shrugged his shoulders just like Argo had moments ago, before responding:

"Could you come see me again at around three o'clock in the afternoon?"

This was the standard phrase used by quest ＮＰＣs when in cooldown. Since it's eight-fifty in the morning right now, it's probably safe to assume based on his three o'clock reference that the cooldown timer is set to six hours.

"SeE?", uttered Argo upon turning around.

I kept my silence as I opened my menu window and sent the smirking info broker an invite.







The plot for 《The Stray Calf》 quest is as follows: as the quest's title implies, a calf has gone astray and our job is to find and bring it back to the farm in one piece.

Now, if that was all there was to the job, it would be just a garden-variety search/escort quest, but there's a catch: in order to find the calf, we need to borrow its mommy cow from the farmer and bring it with us all the way to the prairie area that we need to sweep through. And this cow is horribly temperamental - unless you give it its favourite rock salt to lick every four to five minutes, it will end up running off in the wrong direction in a hissy fit, ultimately returning all the way back to the farm. Luckily, monsters don't go after the cow, but since it is quite possible to find yourself in a situation where its salt gauge runs out just as you're in the middle of a battle, it's quite the undertaking to go through smoothly when you're doing it solo.

Likely fully aware of this fact, Argo chatted me up with a big old smirk right after we finished disposing of the first two worms that attacked us after we'd left the village.

"Well noW, must be glad y've got help on this, ainchA?"

"……Not like two measly worms are that big of a deal; I could've finished them off in a flash all on my own, so there."

Jabbing back at her with a grade-schooler-level argument, I took out an egg-sized lump of rock salt from my belt pouch and let the cow lick on it. While the cow's salt gauge wasn't actually visible to the eye, the cow's tail starts moving faster and faster as the gauge goes down, so as long as you're aware of that little telltale sign, you've got no real reason to worry that the cow will run off on you.

Since the cow let out a satisfied "Mooo～", I stroked her black-on-white (or is it vice-versa?) body, before setting off once more. The small path crossing eastward through the forest wasn't labyrinthine, unlike the route to the Village of Horunka from the Town of Beginnings. Dangerous monsters didn't spawn around this place either, so I had more than enough leeway to enjoy the glittering sunlight filtering in through the trees and the chirping of the little birds on them, but my gaze found itself drawn to the waistline——the weapon hanging at said waistline to be precise——of the info broker walking ahead of me instead.

Argo didn't put on airs back at the inn for nothing, as her main weapon was quite the curio: 《Claws》. Basically, they're claws made from iron, or 《tetsu no tsume》 in Japanese, that you equip on the back of both of your hands, but I've practically never seen anyone actually pick this particular weapon, even during my time in the beta test.

I did give them a shot myself in the early days of the test, actually, but I had no luck whatsoever figuring out how to use them properly, and threw in the towel before long. While they did benefit from a light weight and the ability to attack with both hands, their reach was underwhelmingly short, necessitating stepping in so close to your foe that it almost felt like you were going to crash into the monster instead. Yes, there are times when you do end up getting close to a monster during battle by accident, but it takes a whole lot of guts to get up-close-and-personal in a FullDive environment intentionally.

The fear factor in getting too close for comfort should've been incomparably far more pronounced in the official service of the game now that it's become a death game, than it had been back in the beta days, so how come Argo specifically chose to use claws nonetheless…

As I continued trekking on with that train of thought occupying my mind, Argo turned around my way all of a sudden, and adeptly went on walking backwards, a smug grin adorning her face.

"Boyo, did Big Sis's lower body catch yer eye that much, hmM?"

"Bo-……Sis……"

'I ain't no boyo! And you ain't no Big Sis either!', protested my inner-self, but I managed to force those words back down my throat with great effort; after taking a deep breath, I opened my mouth once more.

"What caught my eye was your weapon, actually. Why claws specifically, of all things?"

"That info's gonna run ya a hundred cor, maN."

"Grrr……"

I let out a short groan upon hearing the remark I should've seen coming. A hundred cor wasn't exactly an unaffordable sum of money, but was I dying to know the answer so much so that I'd be willing to pay for it?… I'm not so sure… and more importantly, it's ruffling my feathers on principle.

"……Nah, I'm sure I'll figure it out on my own by the time we clear this quest, so I'll pass."

"Ho-hoh, can't wait to see ya trY. Big Sis here's willin' to add ya to her friends list if ya actually do get it right, maN."

"H-hey now……"

Just as I was about to kick up a fuss, my right ear caught a low 'bzzzt……' buzzing sound. Seemingly having noticed it at the same time, Argo equipped the claws that had been hanging at her hips so fast that my eyes couldn't even pick up on her speed.

"Mooie, stop!"

Upon hearing my order, the cow obediently stopped in its tracks. Argo did give me a "Mooie, reallY?" look, but I ignored her and drew my Annealed Blade from my back instead. Closing in on us from the forest's depths were giant wasp-type monsters that measured over forty centimetres in length each. Wasps this large back in the real world would provoke far more than just screams, but here in Aincrad, they actually belonged to the smallest class of monsters around. Which made them that much harder to land a clean hit on.

The giant wasps——formally named 【Forest Wasps】 numbered two. Taking up position to provide cover for the cow, I gave orders to the third ever party member I've had since the official service of the game began.

"Argo, the guy on the left is all yours. Forest wasps shoot venom, so watch yourself!"

"Didja hit yer head and forget whom yer dealin' with 'ere, c’moN."

Her response was biting, yet equally brimming with competence. Assured that she'd handle herself just fine, I turned my focus solely to the Forest Wasp on the right.

Continuing to make unpleasant 'bzzt', 'bzzt' buzzing sounds with its wings, the giant wasp approached me slowly, as if taunting me. They were considered the superior cousins of the 【Yellow Wasp】 breed inhabiting the prairie next to the Town of Beginnings for good reason: their movement patterns were trickier to nail down, and they even had ranged attack capabilities in the form of shooting venom from afar, just as I had warned Argo.

Liquid-based attacks were far easier to handle if you had a large shield on hand, but since I forwent the possession of shields in favour of a better visual field, I had to resort to dodging the venom attacks, seeing as I couldn't block them properly. It wasn't exactly impossible to ward off the attacks with my sword instead, but weapons tended to suffer far more durability damage from poison attacks compared to armour.

The same issue also affected Argo, given that she was just as shieldless, but I couldn't very well take my focus off from my own foe at the moment. Until now, the Forest Wasp had been closing in on me with irregular motions through the air, but after hovering in one spot for a few moments, it suddenly stuck out the long stinger on its butt towards me, and just then…

"Toryah"

Subconsciously letting out a yell, I leapt to the right. Seems like I'd dawdled a bit too long, since I felt a scant burn on my cheek from the splatter of the venom, but it wasn’t enough to cause any noticeable drop in ＨＰ, nor was I afflicted with a poison debuff.

While soaring through the air, I propped my Annealed Blade on my right shoulder, initiating a single-hit diagonal slash Sword Skill: 《Slant》. Kicking off the ground the moment my feet landed on it, I executed my skill. Still reeling from its venom attack's motion delay, the Forest Wasp was helpless to resist as I aimed for the small slit between its head and chest.

Although both the Annealed Blade's reach and its weight were utterly different from that of the Short Sword I had been using as my starter gear, my feel for the sword had apparently been ingrained into my body far more profoundly than I had assumed thanks to all my time swinging it around back in my beta days. Letting off a pale blue light and a deep vibrating noise, the tip of the sword effortlessly sank into the under-five-millimetre slit, and gave rise to a sharp 'Kah!' as it lopped the wasp's head off.

Split apart, the wasp's head and torso remained unnaturally still in the air, then contracted for a moment, before dissipating into blue particles. I promptly turned my gaze to my left, where I saw that Argo was just in the midst of parrying her wasp's bite attack with her right-hand claw, before following up with a deep thrust right into its defenceless abdomen with her left-hand claw.

As the wasp's ＨＰ bar turned to zero, it scattered into the air with a noise reminiscent of glass being broken. After running a glance through the Results window that appeared in my view, I walked over to the info broker.

"Nice job."

"Same to ya, maN.

Were my party member a longtime buddy of mine, this would call for a fistbump or something, but I've only known Argo for a few hours at best, and heck, she's got those sharp claws equipped on the back of her hands to boot. This was going to be my excuse for skipping the whole fistbump thing altogether, but Argo seemed to be of a different mind: she returned her claws to the metal hooks on either side of her hips, before sticking out her right fist towards me with no hesitation.

Finding myself in a tight spot, I reluctantly extended my left fist and gave hers a light bump. That very moment, the memories I had locked away in the very depths of my mind slipped out of their chains ever so slightly.

Yesterday, from one o'clock in the afternoon when ＳＡＯ's official service began, till five-thirty in the afternoon when Kayaba Akihiko announced that SAO had become a death game, I had been working hand-in-hand with another player.

A curved-bladesman, named Klein, had managed to identify me as a former beta tester despite being a complete newbie, and brazenly pestered me for a favour: "Dude, give a guy a lecture on the game, will ya!"⁽¹⁾. Finding myself overwhelmed by the guy's zeal and winding up responding with an ＯＫ to the guy', I gave up on my early-bolting plans for the game, and instead found myself teaching the guy the basics of using Sword Skills.

While Sword Skills can actually be triggered mid-jump, or even from a prone position when you truly get the hang of things, everyone more or less has trouble getting it right the very first time. Even when you do fumble your way into figuring out the correct position and angle to adopt with your weapon to initiate the Sword Skill, getting a handle on the skill execution——or more precisely, the system assist——to land your attack on your chosen target is no simple matter. The skill will #fail#(fumble) if you get ahead of yourself and swing your sword before the assist kicks in; conversely, if the assist does kick in but you miss the timing for jumping onto the train and get dragged into the motion unprepared, proper aiming will be the least of your worries.

Having, like, basically zero experience in coaching someone on how to use Sword Skills… or teaching anything in general, for that matter, I only managed to explain how skills worked to Klein through awfully vague gut-feeling explanations like: "Just hold it in place for a moment and wait for it to go 'kyuiin', then let it go 'bam' into a slash"; still, Klein persevered until he did eventually manage to activate the Curved Sword skill's basic technique, 《Reaver》, and finish off the weakest monster in the game, the #blue boar#(Frenzy Boar), with it.

The guy was so overjoyed at his success that it almost seemed like he managed to get the Last Attack Bonus for beating a Floor Boss when he shouted:

"Hec' yeaaah, baby!"

while striking an exaggerated victory pose, before going in for a high-five with me.

I can still feel slight traces of the numbness in my left hand from when we bumped fists with great zest back then. I even remember finding myself thinking that I might manage to get along just fine with this guy, even though I'd originally been dead set on continuing with my solo-play ways in the official service of the game, just like in the beta…

But I abandoned Klein by the wayside.

When I decided to move my base of operations to the Village of Horunka right after the death game fact was announced, I offered Klein to go with me. But the guy rejected my suggestion, stating that he couldn't just abandon his friends from another game, who had stayed behind at the plaza of the Town of Beginnings.

Back then, I was faced with two options. One option was to meet up with Klein's companions and move over to Horunka with all of them. My other option was to part ways with Klein right then and there, and set off for Horunka all by myself.

As I dithered between the two options, Klein told me:

——I can't exactly burden ya any more than I already have, now can I. See, I take pride in the fact that I used ta head a guild back in my ol' game. We'll manage somehow with the techs ya taught me, jus' ya wait. So, doncha worry about us and just head on over ta the next village without us.

His words gave me an out, and I jumped right on board. I chose the path that ensured I myself got stronger, even if it meant abandoning the first friend I'd made in ＳＡＯ.

From a long-term perspective, I definitely made the wrong choice back there. No matter how many levels I stack up, even the Floor Boss on the First Floor would prove too much for me to defeat all on my own. In order to beat the death game, teamwork was absolutely essential.

Yesterday, Klein had still been just a beginner, but his handling of his own body in FullDive environment wasn't half bad, and he was a 《nice dude》 with enough charm to claim "I take pride in the fact that I used ta head a guild" without embellishment. With a bit of leveling here, and a bit of building up some knowledge and experience there, he could very well make use of his leadership trait that I find lacking in myself, to spearhead players progressing through the game.

And yet I left the guy who could one day become a capable leader behind at the Town of Beginnings, choosing to prioritise my own extremely selfish desire: “I wanna get a headstart as an early-bolter”. Even though I could easily see it all happening: the guy meets up with his companions and likely leaves the town once more alongside them, only to find himself and his six-member party wiped out in a mere streak of misfortune in the Outer Field.

There is a way to confirm whether he is still alive. Since I remember his player name, spelled 《Ｋｌｅｉｎ》, I could simply shoot him an instant message. As a matter of fact, when we parted ways yesterday, I did tell the guy: "If anything happens, shoot me a message."

But even now, over fifteen hours later, I've still had no contact from him.

That's precisely why I just can't find it in myself to send him a message myself, no matter what. If I were to send one and receive a 【A player by this name cannot be found】 error message…… just thinking about it sends chills down my spine.

In the end, I just keep running away from things, even now. Ever since I parted ways with Klein in that back alley in the Town of Beginnings and ran off, I've been turning my eyes away from all the responsibilities I should've taken upon myself, playing the fool who believed that I was making myself stronger. That's probably why I ended up being unable to get out of my bed this very morning.

"What's up with that freaky expression of yers, paL."

Hearing that voice, I blinked twice, or thrice before focusing my vision. Only to find Argo peering into my face a mere fifteen centimetres away——

"Nowah!"

I found myself jumping back by reflex, so I tried smoothing things over in a hurry.

"O-oh, well, it's nothing……"

Just then, I got the sense that if I didn't get this question out of my system now, I wouldn't get another chance to do so for quite a while, so I quickly shook my head.

"W……well, it's not nothing, actually."

"HaH?"

"Umm……Argo-san, what prompted you to become an info broker? I don't really think you're going to turn all that much of a profit doing this job, and you won't be able to find as much time for your own leveling when you're busy gathering info or compiling guidebooks, no?"

"MmN～～～"

Argo groaned for a bit while playing with the tips of her curls sticking out from the side of her hood, but then her usual sardonic smile found its way back on her face, catching me by surprise.

"I've got several answers: one fer free, one fer a hundred cor, and another fer a hundred thousand cor; which one d'ya wanna heaR?"

"……Hey, that last one stands out with its horribly inflated price tag."

After mumbling a complaint under my breath, I gave a shrug of my shoulders as I answered:

" 'kay then, the one for free."

"RighT. 'Kay theN, here's my answer: I actually do think I can turn a profit ‘ere, seE."

"Wha? But didn't you just say that the guidebook business is going to leave you in the red, or something?"

"Welp sure, at firsT. But by the fourth or fifth book, I should start seein' a profit, toO. Once my business is on track, I'm thinkin' of hirin' some help to start makin' somethin' more like a newspaper, to booT."

"A-a nyuhspaper……"

I felt my jaw drop in surprise, but come to think of it, ＳＡＯ didn't really have much in the way of entertainment. I could easily see players dead set on waiting for their rescue within the Inner Area to become starved for information and reading material in general, thus if someone were to publish a newspaper, they might indeed rake in a fair amount of sales.

"……So in a nutshell, you're running an info broker business because you think you'll turn a profit?"

"ExactamundO. Though, do keep in mind that it's just the answer I'm offerin' for freE."

Staring at Argo's 'nishishi' smirk, I spent a few moments wavering whether I should ask her for the hundred cor answer too, before nodding instead.

"I see. Then I'll offer some prayers so that your whole business thing works out for you."

"Oh mY? Sure ya don't wanna hear the answer fer a hundred cor, hmM?"

"Yeah. But I'll have you know it's not because I'm too stingy to pay up a hundred cor. It's just, like……I don't want to come across as paying money to pry into your heart."

When I stated my answer with a sour look, it was Argo's turn to blink in surprise a few times, and then the biggest smirk yet found its way on her face.

"Oh mY, oh mY, is that sO; I see my boyo's finally startin' to get the hang of how to treat a lady right, if only by a littlE."

"Knock it off with that 'boyo' thing already."

"YoopsiE, Mooie's lookin' pretty peeved right about noW, boyo."

"Whu……"

When I turned around to look at the cow, I noticed that her tail swings had indeed picked up quite a bit of speed. Flustered, I rushed over to her, took out the rock salt from my pouch, and let the cow lick on it.

As the cow's 'Mnoooo～～' entered my ears, I muttered to myself in my mind: "You know what, forget what I just said; one day I'll save up two hundred thousand cor and get her to tell me both the reason for the whiskers, and her reason for becoming an info broker, mark my words."

Part 1

Index

Part 3

Notes

1. ^ This "quote" is inconsistent with both the novel's, and the anime's version of what Klein actually said back on day 1. Klein's line in volume 1 was "ちょいと引率（レクチヤー）してくれよ！" and the anime's rendition of his line was "序盤のコツちょいとレクチャーしてくれないか". However, this side story makes up a THIRD variant: "このゲームのレクチャーをしてくれよ".