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

As Sorin said this, he pointed the small shield in the direction in front of him. Sure enough, after the rooster-like fish monster had been underwater for a while, it emerged from the other end of the shallows, flapping its huge fins and charging towards Sorin. Then it crashed headfirst into the small shield, and the whole fish (or chicken?) fell backward, its white belly exposed.

"Yuna, go up and attack him, then when I say retreat, you retreat back to activate your buff." After giving these instructions, Sorin switched to his katana and charged at the rooster-like giant fish monster. With a few strikes, he reduced its health by about five percent. "Retreat! Retreat!"

He shouted and then took a step back and ran five or six meters away. After hearing Sorin's warning, Yuna also turned around and ran, dodging the rooster-fish monster's self-inflicted "comeback" skill.

"We noticed that this rooster-shaped giant fish monster has a 'turnaround' skill, which is specifically designed to punish players who like to greedily attack. In a normal BNS game, we would assign a warrior or swordsman to grab the boss and attack it when it flips over, which would make things much easier. However, we don't have that kind of resource now, so we can only carefully avoid it."

He still had the leisure to provide commentary. After all, the mini-boss guarding the maze area was designed to be challenging for a small team, and Sorin's own output was comparable to that of a small team. With the buff from Hime Yuna behind him, there was naturally no pressure.

Sorin had initially wondered if giving this quest directly to the labyrinth area was a bit excessive for the current progress of the exploration. However, after the Rooster Fish Monster was defeated, his doubts were resolved—one of the Rooster Fish Monster's drops was the [Hosu's Forging Hammer], which was marked as a quest item.

"So that blacksmith's name is Hosselves, right? Does he have a sister who plays with zombies...?" Sorin couldn't help but mutter. Among the other drops from this boss was a pair of daggers called [Scattered Flow], with an equipment level of 16 and a maximum enhancement level of twelve. Currently, it seemed to be the second most powerful weapon he owned, after the Phantom Light one. Now he finally had five weapons, but this wouldn't provide his teammates with a 25% critical damage increase. After all, this wasn't the Arad continent, and he wasn't the swordsman whose left hand was corrupted by Kazan.

(Dual daggers are not a dual-wielding style; the sword skills of this weapon are more like dual swords in Monster Hunter, and it cannot compete with dual-wielding in terms of DPS.)

"This should count as mission accomplished, right?" Yuna walked over to Sorin and sighed softly. "Next, we should organize the exploration of the dungeon area, right?"

“Theoretically, we should clear the dungeon area first, but we’ll have to wait until Kirito’s faction quest is completed before we can find a strategy for the boss. The last faction quest provided information about the boss, and I believe we should have similar assistance this time.” Sorin sheathed all his weapons back into the pile of scabbards on his body and pointed to the boats on the shore. “Anyway, let’s go back first. I checked the date, and it seems like tomorrow is Christmas.”

"Christmas... By the way, Sorin, how do you usually spend Christmas?" Yuna suddenly asked curiously.

“In the past, I would probably spend some time at church with Uncle Graz, and then go home for a family dinner… I grew up in an Orthodox family, and although I'm an atheist, over the years I've been influenced and can now pretend to say a few prayers before the dinner. But in China, we usually play cards at the club on the 25th, while here, nothing happens on January 7th except for middle school students having a holiday.” Sorin thought carefully and answered like this. Meanwhile, Yuna, while curious, suddenly heard a very sad sigh.

"what happened?"

"No, it's nothing, let's go back first." Solin deliberately tried to gloss over the matter. It wasn't that he was trying to hide anything from Yuna, but since he was live-streaming and a large part of his past involved confidentiality regulations, it wasn't appropriate to tell Yuna directly without confirmation.

Fortunately, Yuna saw his predicament and did not delve into the matter. She simply nodded and followed Sorin onto the Phoenix Tail Boat, which had witnessed many things, and gradually moved away from the waters.

------

As the saying goes, "With books, life is long; without books, life is short," after Sorin completed the tasks for the blacksmith and Kissmael, he received two messages from Kirito. One message said that their shipbuilding task was finished, and they had even arranged a ship for Sorin and Yuna to dock in the port area of ​​Nobia City. The other message, just sent, said that they were preparing for Christmas in the city and urged Sorin and Yuna to return to the main city. Sorin had now completed a whole section of the quest, so he quickly ended the broadcast and prepared to set off with Yuna, hoping to reach the main city before nightfall.

As for messages of concern about Sorin's situation... there were actually many. Even Asuna messaged him privately immediately after he posted about being attacked. However, the only one who didn't ask was Kirito. His exact words to Asuna at the time were, "Don't even mention being killed twice; I wouldn't be surprised if he said he killed all six of them."

"Let's go, I heard there's a dinner party tonight, don't keep Kirito and the others waiting."

As he spoke, Sorin was still standing at the stern steering the ship. His weapon rack-like appearance had been transformed into a black and white box carried on his back, the "Kaleidoscope" that the blacksmith and Kissmel had mentioned earlier. This box was over a meter long, with various sword hilts or guards protruding from three of its sides, making it easy to draw weapons from it at any time.

However, in reality, this weapon only has this visual effect. Essentially, the Kaleidoscope functions more like a portable backpack or quick access bar. It can provide up to eleven weapon slots and further speeds up weapon switching, truly enabling the operation of canceling the aftercast animation, switching weapons, and then activating sword skills after using various sword techniques.

On the other hand, both he and Yuna received their new weapons. Yuna's rapier had been transformed into a high-end weapon called the "Sword of Skill." According to Sorin, this alien weapon wouldn't appear in the world for at least ten thousand years, but Yuna just took it as a joke.

"Let's go then, maybe we can give them a surprise."

69. When you come back and read this chapter tonight, I'll still be awake.

Lobia City East District, Commercial Area, [Salamander Drake] Restaurant.

Solin looked at the coordinates displayed on his map, which matched his location, glanced at the sign, and then pushed open the door to the restaurant. The interior was decorated quite elegantly, and various decorations were hung to celebrate the upcoming Christmas.

"Let me see, 205...it should be upstairs?" Sorin glanced at the room number Kirito had sent him. This process reminded him of the dinners he used to have with his high school and university classmates. Perhaps the only difference was that Sorin had always been alone before, but this time he had brought a very cute girl with him.

He had specially changed his outfit this time, still wearing his ever-present Senate uniform over a white tuxedo with light blue floral patterns and matching trousers. Yuna, whose everyday clothes almost never changed, had also unusually donned a Lolita-style dress. While this outfit didn't quite accentuate her usual aloof and refined air as an artistic young woman, it was perfectly suited for the occasion, especially when she stood next to Sorin; the pair immediately attracted a lot of attention.

After following the directions for a while on the second floor, Suolin found the single room with the number 205 on the door. He gently pushed open the door and glanced at the people sitting there.

Kirito and Asuna, who organized this dinner party, were naturally present. In addition to the two of them, there was Argo, an information broker girl with rat whiskers drawn on her cheeks, and Yura, the chief MT of the Edelweiss Guild.

"Zderlasevich (Hello), everyone's here today! Am I late?" Sorin waved to the group already seated and greeted them. "Hey, Yura, what brings you here too?"

"Why can't I come? All my teammates are either with their girlfriends or boyfriends, leaving me all alone with no one to take me, so I had to come to you, Guild Master..." Yura waved her hand, looking completely innocent. "Speaking of which, Guild Master, your new look is quite impressive. If you keep this up, you might as well consider replacing Asuna as the face of our guild."

"You... dyed your hair? I remember you used to have blonde hair." Kirito had a similar reaction. He looked at Sorin's new look with considerable surprise and suddenly asked, "Come to think of it, you were clearly more suited to fooling Mr. Nezuha in that way on the second floor."

"This is my natural hair color. It's just faded from the dye I did before. Don't take that seriously." Solin shrugged helplessly. "I didn't expect even you to start criticizing my appearance. Next time I might really have to wear a mask or something... It'll be hard to convince everyone..."

"Let's not. I think it's a waste of resources for you to wear a mask." Kirito shook his head quickly after hearing Sorin's words, then leaned close to Sorin's ear and asked mysteriously, "Going out with a girl for so long... I feel like something terrible has happened."

"So, you and Asuna did a mission together for so long, did something extraordinary happen?" Upon hearing this, Sorin jokingly added, "According to you, does that mean something extraordinary happens every time a man spends time alone with a woman?"

"No, no, no, I didn't! Don't talk nonsense! I'm only 14, okay?" Kirito quickly waved his hands in denial. "But Yuna-san's gaze towards you clearly had... that feeling. Are you sure nothing terrible happened?"

"Okay, it's just that I confessed successfully." Solin said calmly, seemingly unconcerned, but the bright expression on his face clearly betrayed his true thoughts. "By the way, I also defeated the gatekeeper boss of the fourth level of the maze. I'll give you guys a day off for Christmas, and then everyone will prepare to explore the maze area. You two need to hurry up too."

"Hey, hey, hey, it's Christmas, a happy day, and we're talking about work so seriously. Seriously," Asuna complained from the side. "We rushed to finish the ship missions these past two days and even found another hidden questline."

"Okay... I admit you guys are better. You're covered in pudding, like you just ate some spicy chicken. Are you alright now?" Sorin said to Asuna in the tone of someone comforting a child, while also complaining about Yura, "To be honest, it's your teammates who are afraid of you, their senior, giving them sleeping tea. Don't try to drag everything into the single people's way of saying it."

"And now, let me formally introduce everyone. This is Ms. Yuna, who will soon officially become a member of Edelweiss. From now on, you will all..."

"Hello, sister-in-law!" Yura exclaimed first, never one to miss an opportunity to stir things up. "Congratulations, President!"

Sorin's lips twitched, but he didn't object to Yura's statement. He was just speechless at the MT who was still acting silly. Similarly, Yuna blushed slightly and didn't refute Yura's statement either.

"Instead of wasting time chatting about this stuff, let's eat something. It hurts to see all this food losing durability." Solin said, picking up the chopsticks on the table first, picking up a small piece of fish and holding it to Youna's mouth. "It looks pretty good. Try it for me."

“…Hmm.” Yuna nodded, took a small piece of fish from her chopsticks, and savored it carefully. “Hmm.”

Yuna didn't say much even when there were many people around, but the smile on her face showed the quality of the dish. She also picked up a piece with her chopsticks and put it on Sorin's plate.

"I say, who suggested bringing the God of Wealth over?" Argo muttered under his breath. "This is blatant dog abuse, a live dog, and you guys don't even react?"

"I never expected things to progress so quickly on Sorin's side. Besides, isn't it normal to invite your friends to a get-together?" Kirito said, but his face still wore a bitter and resentful expression. "I'm not taking the blame for this."

In fact, although it was said to be to celebrate Christmas, the people present were just chatting about some everyday topics. Apart from Solin, a public figure, none of them had any intention of bringing up real-world issues. As a result, the conversation quickly turned into things like "Which monsters drop which rare equipment or items?" and "What did the boss on which floor look like and what skills did it have during the closed beta?"

The only thing worth mentioning is that everyone present except for Sorin and Yura was a minor, so they all ordered soft drinks. Yura suddenly had the illusion that she could outdrink her handsome president. Just then, Sorin was in a great mood and was in the zone, so he used three bottles of mixed vodka to teach Yura how to be an adult on the spot.

Although the alcohol in SAO doesn't make anyone except Sorin feel drunk, Yura, who is used to low-alcohol drinks, was instantly overwhelmed by the unique taste of the first sip of vodka, and was still incredulous about this strange drink when the party ended.

"Tomorrow's a holiday, right, Guild Master? Then see you the day after tomorrow." Yura waved to Sorin at the entrance of [Salamander Drake] before heading towards her own residence. The others also decided to return to their respective homes after saying goodbye, and Sorin was no exception... or so it should have been.

Yuna was used to Sorin intermittently staring at her blankly while letting out low moans of "awsl," but this time the situation seemed quite unusual. She watched in surprise as Sorin's captivating blue-purple pupils widened considerably, and then two clear tears slowly streamed down his face, seemingly without him even realizing it.

"What's wrong?" Yuna had just asked when she felt a chill on her cheek. She looked up and saw that the dark sky was suddenly filled with white sprites that slowly swirled down to the ground.

"It's snowing, Yuna," he said softly, his voice tinged with vulnerability. "If you could, would you like to watch the snow with me?"

70. Old Stories (I'm going to sleep now, goodnight)

Solin himself was unsure of what was happening. To him, this was just a common snowfall, with a dozen or so every winter, and even back in China, he would see three or four every year. Yet, this familiar snow made him feel somewhat unreal.

"What a magnificent snowfall. I've never seen anything like it in Tokyo," Yuna remarked softly.

She and Sorin walked side by side on the main street of the eastern district of Lobia City, where players could be seen hurrying by everywhere, and of course, many people stopped to watch the rare snow scene.

“Tokyo… I’ve been to Tokyo so many times, and I’ve never seen it snow so heavily. Perhaps this kind of sight is indeed novel to you.” Sorin replied thoughtfully, “People are always drawn to sights they’ve never seen before and curious about things they’ve never tried, which is why we met here. You probably haven’t played any other MMORPGs before, have you?”

“No, that’s true. SAO was the first game I ever played. I was initially very curious about this almost realistic virtual world, but now I wish I hadn’t been so curious back then.” Yuna sighed softly, then suddenly seemed to have heard something incredible, “Sorin, have you ever been to Tokyo?”

“I’ve been there many times. Most of the time it’s for competitions, and a few times it’s to visit a high school classmate of mine who’s studying at the University of Tokyo.” Suolin thought for a moment and then replied, “About two months ago, I was planning to sneak away for a live stream before heading to Tokyo for a competition, but I haven’t been able to go since.”

"But on the bright side, if we hadn't been trapped in this death game, we probably wouldn't have met."

“Not necessarily. Although you should have forgotten about it by now, I still remember it.” Yuna suddenly said, “It should have been in 2019. Someone appeared in front of a girl in a small alley, just like that night on the third floor. He comforted the girl with gentlemanly words and then chased away the bad guys with the box in his hand.”

"Is that so...? I do seem to have a vague recollection of it. Let me think..."

When Suolin heard what Yuna said, his thoughts drifted back to a day long ago. It was also night, also in a small alley, and also... those two protagonists.

——————2019, Tokyo——————

"I told you long ago, Dragoncraft is a timeless deck. Back then, they said that with so many Planeswalkers in the meta and the slow color scheme, they were thinking of building a four-color Planeswalker deck. That was completely unreliable, and I exposed them."

The speaker was a blond, blue-eyed young man wearing a fitted T-shirt and capri pants. His short, bright blond hair barely reached his ears, and a striking, thin braid hung down to his waist.

In his left hand, he carried a heavy-looking all-metal case with a white "Pro League" logo engraved on it, while in his right hand, he cradled a huge trophy. Behind him stood a very large, overweight man and a bespectacled boy who looked like a high school student. They were both carrying similar cases, but without the white logo.

"Okay, okay, Teacher Mo is still awesome. I'll wait until we get back to see your battle report." The fat man gave the young man a thumbs up, his face full of admiration. "I feel like Yashioka's eyes widened when he saw that Extreme Speed. Who could have predicted that?"

"The beauty is that you can't predict it. In the professional tournament... I can brag about it for at least a season." He said this, an uncontrollable smug smile appearing on his delicate face. "By the way, Mr. Roushan, why don't you take Xiao Han back to the hotel first? I'm going out for a walk."

"Aren't you worried about carrying such a heavy suitcase when you go out for a stroll?" the fat man, nicknamed "Mountain of Flesh," asked with some doubt. "How about I take it back for you? I didn't bring much anyway."

"I'll carry the suitcase for self-defense. If I run into two thugs causing trouble, I can't just pick up bricks from the ground, can I? Besides, where would I get bricks in Tokyo?" He shrugged and handed the trophy he was holding in his right hand to the mountain of meat. "Take good care of it. I'm going to keep this at home to ward off evil spirits. This should be the third one."

Meat Mountain accepted the trophy, waved at him, then patted the high school student next to him on the shoulder, and the two left together. He waved back, then wandered aimlessly in one direction.

Tokyo is a large city. And large cities have one characteristic: it's easy to get lost. And he was already lost in a tangled mess of alleyways. After stubbornly trying for half an hour, he finally decided to take out his phone and use the all-powerful map function to get out of this maze, but at that moment a noisy sound came from behind him.

"Little sister, you're dressed so nicely, you must have some pocket money, right? Why don't you help your brothers out?"

"You...you guys stay away!"

The first sentence was a thuggish, roguish statement, followed by a girl's voice trembling with tears. Intrigued by this turn of events, he decided to investigate. In his mind, he already pictured four or five thugs surrounding a pitiful-looking girl, demanding money and perhaps even doing worse.

"Interesting, maybe I should go take a look?" he thought, and walked towards the direction the sound came from. After turning a corner, he saw a dead end, with four or five hippies surrounding the alley, and a cute little brown-haired girl being surrounded by them.

"Hey, friends, it's not really appropriate for so many grown men to bully a girl. (in Japanese)" He thought for a long time about how to say this, and then calmly and confidently said it.

"Where did this nosy brat come from? We're just asking the kids for some change to buy a pack of cigarettes, what's it to you?" one of the hippies casually retorted, and then he saw a box flying towards him at high speed, hitting him squarely in the face.

"Fuck your mother! Five grown men asking this little brat for money? If you're so great, why don't you rob a bank?" He immediately unleashed a torrent of profanities, which, while somewhat shattering his otherwise elegant image, did indeed intimidate the group of hippies.

"You...you just wait!" After slamming the card box in the face, the leader of the hippies, seeing that this strange foreigner speaking fluent Chinese seemed like someone not to be trifled with, uttered a harsh threat and led the remaining hippies away in a sorry state. After watching them leave, he walked up to the little girl and asked in broken Japanese, "Alright, little one, you're such a tiny kid and you're already wandering around like that, especially in these alleyways. You wait here, I'll call the police first."

"Please don't call the police, big brother?" The little girl looked at him with pitiful eyes, her voice trembling. "I have my father's contact information here. Can you help me contact him?"

As she spoke, she took a business card from the inner pocket of her dress and handed it to him with trembling hands. He glanced at the information on the card, then immediately took out his phone and dialed a number.

"Moshi moshi? Is this Professor Shigemura? Ah, your daughter got lost in a certain neighborhood, but she's with me now. Could you come and pick her up as soon as possible? If I knew where I was, I wouldn't have gotten lost, sir. I'm just here for sightseeing... Alright, please hurry. I'll wait here for a bit."

71. How do people who have never seen snow play in the snow?

"Thinking back... what I remember most vividly is Day 1, when the three brothers of Taoyuan fought Lu Bu and were completely wiped out, and then in the finals, they successfully swept the professional competition through three rounds and eighty hills. I don't remember anything after that. If you hadn't mentioned it, I probably wouldn't have remembered it at all." After recalling for a while, Suolin's tone was quite emotional. "So I had already met you back then?"

"Yes, but when you called Father, you said you were going on a trip, but judging from what you said... your trip doesn't seem to be that simple." Yuna was naturally referring to a storyline like "The Three Brothers of Peach Garden Fight Lu Bu and are All Wiped Out." She had heard from other members of the Edelweiss Guild that Suolin was quite well-known outside, but she didn't know the specifics.

"It's the highest level competition in a card game. I went to Tokyo to participate and won. That's roughly it." Sorin explained simply, then turned his attention to other things. "Let's not talk about that for now. But you wouldn't be like that silly Asuna and just use the pronunciation of your name as your ID, would you?"

"...Is there a problem? After all, this is my first time playing this kind of game." Yuna was a little unconvinced by Sorin's evaluation and replied angrily, "I even suspect that Sorin Markov is your Russian name."

“My Russian name is Alexei. Of course, I was born in China, and I rarely use this name after returning home.” Sorin shook his head, denying Yuna’s guess. “You have a father who loves you deeply, and so does Asuna. I envy that.”

Yuna seemed to understand the underlying meaning of Sorin's words, but she wisely did not press the matter, feeling that if she continued to ask, she might hurt Sorin.