Am I the only one streaming Sword Art Online on the entire internet?

"Humans, this is not your territory! Leave now, or we will attack you!" The dark elf sentries at the gate immediately went on alert when they saw such a large group of people approaching the front of the camp.

Sorin had anticipated this situation. He took out the token given to him by the dark elf lady, showed it to the sentry, and then said...

"We have rescued your royal guards and have been entrusted with assisting the dark elves. Please allow us into the city!"

The sentry checked the token in Solin's hand and then let the group in. Although it seemed like a big loophole, Solin knew that these NPCs who acted according to procedure were just going through the motions. As long as they completed the faction gate opening quest and obtained the token, even if they came up with the token and said "FNMDX," the NPC would still let them into the camp. He just said it like that to make it seem less out of place.

37. Last Of The Wilds

(A heads-up: the chapter titles are the names of the songs featured in this chapter; feel free to look them up if you're interested.)

(P.S.: Nightwish is my all-time favorite! I absolutely adore Nightwish!)

(P.S.: Just a heads up, I've cleared all the comments that said "I'm sinking in the west," don't ask me why.)

Suolin suddenly felt very bored.

Kirito and Asuna's whereabouts are unknown. According to his understanding, Kirito may have taken the dark elf girl and Asuna to somewhere to have fun, leaving him alone here to do faction quests.

He also sent everyone in the guild out to advance the faction quests, in small groups.

So now, he's the only one left wandering around the Dark Elf camp all day looking for quests... along with the other players who came to the camp later.

"Alright, it's good to be busy, it's good to be busy..."

Having just completed a mission, Sorin turned it in to the Dark Elf quartermaster, lamenting why she had to work for these Alliance Kaldorei while silently complaining about Kirito, who was naturally very popular with women.

"What do you call this? It's called brothers are like limbs, women are like clothes. A person can be disabled but should never run naked. That's the principle, right?" he said indignantly.

【666】

That's a really brilliant statement.

[Wait a minute, if this streamer is so knowledgeable, how come he still doesn't have a girlfriend?]

[Old man Suolin has already played matchmaker and paired up a couple for fun.]

Caring for elderly man living alone, Suo Lin, is everyone's responsibility.

"I think I should hire two moderators so that anyone who complains about my single status will be put in the blacklist from now on," Solin jokingly said, before starting to wander around the camp looking for any tasks he had missed.

After two days of exploration, most players have unlocked the faction quests. Since Sword Art Online has become a death game, there's no need to worry about whether the forest elves or the dark elves have the advantage in the faction war on the third floor, since there won't be any real faction wars anyway.

"This isn't some kind of faction-based gameplay. Faction-based gameplay is bound to involve fighting. When Kayaba was considering turning this place into a death game, didn't he ever think about changing the gameplay of these levels?"

Of course, he also considered the worst-case scenario. For example, Kayaba wasn't unaware of these possibilities; he simply wanted to witness the carnage in this seemingly realistic death game.

"Forget it, do I really need to think about all this? I just need to lead my team well and beat this game... Speaking of which, should I take a break and play for a while when things are going so well?"

Just as he had given up on finding a mission and was instead wandering around the camp, a melodious Irish bagpipe tune drifted into his ears from not far away. The tune was familiar, and after listening carefully for a while, Solin realized that it was actually "Last Of The Wilds" by the Finnish national treasure band Nightwish, a piece of light music that had been ruined by poorly written lyrics.

Someone once said that the melody of Last Of The Wilds evokes images of elegant elves wandering through the forest under the moonlight, and after actually hearing this music in an elf village, Solin agrees. It couldn't be more fitting.

Hearing familiar music in this almost foreign land was truly a rare occurrence. This immediately piqued Solin's curiosity. He followed the sound, wanting to see who this mysterious performer was. What he saw next was a sight he would never forget.

A sliver of moonlight filtered through the leaves, dappling the ground. An elegant young woman stood in the space between light and shadow, her eyes slightly closed, long eyelashes veiling her eyelids. Her delicate hands rested on the accordion she held to her chest, gently pressing the keys to produce notes that floated in the air. Her waist-length, straight, golden-brown hair flowed in the wind, reflecting the moonlight and making the scene seem almost unreal, like a scene from a CG animation.

【awsl】

What a classy young lady!

"She's so cute, so charming, so mysterious, I'm totally lost (awsl)." Sorin muttered to himself, no longer intending to be just a listener. He didn't know why, but he had teamed up with female players as charming as Asuna before, and even seen his brother Kirito in even more charming female attire, yet he hadn't felt anything at the time. Maybe it was because subconsciously he thought of them as just two little kids.

(Kirito and Asuna were both fourteen years old when they entered the game, while Sorin was 24 years old at this time.)

However, he didn't want to interrupt the girl's organ playing, so he walked over, intending to try to strike up a conversation after the performance ended.

Of course, after making this decision, he immediately shut down the live stream. At this moment, the scene in the live stream was like Shuang Ge's live stream going black and everyone was gone, with people constantly spamming random comments, but Suolin just pretended not to see them.

[That scoundrel Suolin is utterly depraved! I'll die with the camera!] *N

[NMD, WSM?]

Don't end the stream! Flirting with girls on stream is so much more interesting!

I'd trade half my life for a streamer's lifetime of being single.

[Your idea upstairs is dangerous!]

Did you guys notice that girl? She looks like she's underage.

Perhaps everyone was too busy in this tense, death-defying game, because at this moment, only Sorin was there to listen to the melodious organ music. The girl, absorbed in her performance, didn't even notice the person who had suddenly appeared beside her.

Only when the five-minute performance ended, and the last note, along with the moonlight, sank into the ground beneath the tree roots, did the girl raise her head, slightly open her eyes, and look around with her light brown eyes, seeing Solin standing to the side, waiting for a long time.

"Oh!" She looked at Suolin in surprise, almost dropping the accordion in her hands. "You...you...when did you get here?"

"I just heard familiar music from my hometown and came out of curiosity to investigate. I never expected to find a beautiful woman bathed in moonlight." Solin spoke deliberately in a refined tone, while maintaining a distance of about two meters from the girl, neither too distant nor too close to make her feel uncomfortable. "May I ask... how should I address you?"

"Just call me...you can call me Yuu." The girl replied somewhat reservedly, "And you are...?"

"My name is Solin Markov, you can just call me Solin." Solin, who had a terrifyingly low experience in flirting, didn't know how to continue the conversation. He was thinking of opening the live stream to see what the comments said, but then he thought that everyone watching the live stream instead of spending Christmas with someone was a bunch of single dogs, so he gave up on the idea.

"The music just now was very nice. Although it didn't have the same exciting feeling as the original full band version, the solo was more calm and elegant, wasn't it?"

"Really... Thank you." Yuna blushed slightly upon hearing Sorin's praise. However, a message suddenly flashed before her eyes. Sorin couldn't see the message's content, but he realized it was probably Yuna's teammate looking for her.

Although he thought Yuna's pure white forest-style long dress and strappy sandals were completely unsuitable for combat, and she probably wasn't a combat-oriented player, there are always exceptions. Even he had such a bug-like skill, so it was hard to say that other strange skills might appear.

"Um... I'm sorry, Mr. Sorin, my teammates are looking for me, I have to go now." Yuna's expression was full of apology. "You're a good person, thank you."

After saying that, she turned and jogged away, leaving Solin standing there bewildered, her last words echoing in his mind.

"He's a good person...he's a good person...he's a good person..."

Thirty-eight, Solin's Past

Kirito and Asuna still hadn't returned. Sorin sat alone in the tent, increasingly convinced that this was no big deal.

"Damn it, what did I do wrong? Someone just threw a 'you're a good person' at me like that. What kind of nonsense is this?" he muttered angrily to himself.

Just then, he received a text message from Kirito.

"We'll be back in a couple of days and bring you a surprise."

"Surprise? Come on, translate this for me. What the hell is this 'surprise'?" Solin asked with a self-deprecating tone. "The surprise is that in three days I'll give you 1.8 million to go out of the city and kill the boss, and then reattach my leg?"

He suddenly realized that he wasn't live streaming, and even if he were, there would be a long barrage of comments like "[The streamer is showing his age]" flooding the screen.

Solin doesn't stream at night when he's not grinding, since he streams game content, and sleeping at night isn't theoretically part of that content. Besides, he doesn't have the habit of streaming his life 24/7.

After thinking about it for a while, Solin finally made a decision. He stood up, walked out of the tent, and planned to see if he could run into the girl named Yuna again that night.

After wandering around the camp for a long time, Thorin would rush over to investigate every time he heard similar music, but he would always find that it was just an elven NPC playing a harp or flute, not the girl he longed for. In this way, he spent a full two hours, but on the one hand, he ran all over the dark elf camp and figured out the terrain of the camp.

However, Suolin paid no attention to these small benefits. All he could think about was: What the hell did I come out here for? But just as he stood there bewildered, a heavy force slapped his shoulder, followed by a deep baritone voice.

"Why aren't you sleeping so late at night, President Sorin?"

To Thorin's utter surprise, instead of encountering a young girl, he met an older man. Indeed, the person standing behind him was none other than Agil the Axe-Hand.

“…It’s a long story.” Sorin looked at Agil with a bitter and resentful expression, which startled the latter.

“I can’t sleep either, how about we find a tavern for a drink and a chat?” Agil suggested kindly, looking at Sorin’s worried face. “If you go to my place, you’ll probably only have black tea.”

"Damn, I thought only Yura in our guild knew this stupid joke, but I didn't expect you to know it too." Solin replied irritably, "Give me directions, let's grab a bite to eat."

"Understand? Understand what?"

"You want to understand? Forget it, with your size, I reckon even if I taught you how to transform into an adult, you'd just get overwhelmed by a single attack."

Sorin already knows the location of the tavern. It looks quite spacious, and there aren't many people out drinking at this late hour. It's worth noting that in SAO, you only experience the taste of the alcohol itself; the dizziness (i.e., intoxication) caused by alcohol consumption isn't simulated.

Of course, Sorin was unaware of this setting at the moment. His thoughts were very clear: he just wanted to find a tavern and get drunk.

“I’ll just have beer, Solin. You don’t look that old, so don’t choose those…” Agil was interrupted by Solin halfway through his sentence.

"Vodka! Bring me vodka!"

Aikir paused for a moment, and after associating the word vodka with the name of the liquor, his first thought was that it was something that looked terrifying.

"Solin, can you really handle it?" He looked at Solin's thin body and face, which didn't look like a muscular man at all, with some concern, and asked, "That liquor is quite strong."

"Do you think someone who grew up in Siberia... wouldn't know what vodka is?" Sorin looked at Agil, who was worried about him, and suddenly found it a little funny. "If I had the skill, I would even like to make my own, but for now I can only drink the pre-mixed kind."

After a while, a waiter NPC from the tavern came over carrying a large tray. Agil's beer was in a large glass, while Thorin's vodka was in a bottle that looked about the size of a mineral water bottle.

"I think you need a cup."

“No need. Comrade, vodka!” Solin said, raising the already opened bottle to his lips and chugging down several mouthfuls. “It’s not as fiery as the kind from my hometown, but rather has a warm feeling. Apart from being a bit strange, it’s alright.”

That's because it won't make you feel drunk at all, so you'll feel quite warm and cozy. Aikir thought to himself, but at least he remembered why he'd brought Sorin here, unlike Sorin who, upon arriving, only knew how to shout, "Comrade-in-arms, vodka, glug glug glug!"

"You seemed a bit down earlier... Did something happen?" he asked tentatively.

“I saw my first love in a second, stood there listening to her play the organ for five minutes, and then she said to me in a second, ‘You’re a good person.’ Now I’ve spent two hours looking for her, and I’ve found you instead.” Solin succinctly summarized everything that had happened to him that night. “Why the hell is that? What’s wrong with me that she treats me like this?”

“Wait, if you’re describing a girl who plays the organ in the city at night, I might know something about her,” Agil said suddenly after hearing Sorin’s description. “But it’s strange, I always feel like you’re the kind of guy that sixteen or seventeen-year-old girls dream of, especially the kind of ‘little fresh meat’ that young people over there like these days, yes, yes, that’s the feeling.”

"Get lost already! How can a seasoned streamer like me compare to those pretty boys?" Solin retorted defiantly, then started chugging vodka again. "That's why I can't figure it out."

"Alright, if you can't figure it out, let's talk about something else. Like, why did you become a streamer?" Seeing that Sorin was probably beyond help in the short term, Agil changed the subject. "I remember the e-sports environment in China doesn't seem to be very good. Do your family support you becoming a streamer?"

“Fuck it… I have no one at home.” Solin became inexplicably irritated again upon hearing this topic. “My family is a bunch of bastards… a bunch of selfless, selfish bastards…”

Akiel sensed something was wrong upon hearing this; it seemed he had touched on something sensitive. However, the wisest course of action at this moment was to remain silent and instead become a attentive listener.

Of course, he was also puzzled. The alcohol in SAO clearly didn't have the function of making people drunk, but Sorin was obviously drunk. What he probably didn't know was that if someone came to a bar just to get drunk, even if he ordered plain water, he would still get drunk.

“All my family members do is serve their country loyally and then leave a will for their children who are still too young to understand… My great-grandfather was a member of the KMT. He left a letter for my grandfather and went to Nanjing, where he died at the hands of the Japanese. My grandfather later became a regimental commander and went to Vietnam with his division during the Sino-Vietnamese War. He then mailed a box back to my father. My father did the same. He left me with his comrades in Siberia and went to Syria for peacekeeping. I was killed by a roadside bomb… What the hell is going on?”

"So they're a bunch of selfless, selfish bastards. When they went to the battlefield...didn't they think about their children at home?"

Aikir watched helplessly as Sorin, who had been talking, began to sob, burying his face in his hands at the table. For a moment, he didn't know how to comfort him. But he didn't need to think about how to comfort him anymore, because after a while, Sorin suddenly stopped moving. Aikir went over and nudged him a few times, only to find that Sorin had fallen asleep at the table.

"What's going on here..." Agil pondered, went to the bar to pay the bill, and then came back to look at Sorin, who was slumped on the table like a dead pig, wondering how to deal with this guy.

"Well, let's just take it one step at a time..."