Aincrad, 59-th floor…
This is a floor with a rather complex geography. There are mountains, hills, highlands, forests, and even caves here…
Walking around on this floor is like travelling the world in the sense that the scenery changes from an area to another. It’s like somebody downsized the world and turned it into a floor.
There are scenic areas and then there are not-so-scenic areas. If you’re lucky, you can find places where the scene can give the Garden of Flowers on the 47th-floor a run for its money. Of course, there are also places that are so frigid it’s more desolate than the western area of the snowy mountains on the 59th-floor.
In a small town known as Danac, the scenes here are to die for.
Located in a wide, open, hilly grass fields. The color green is a very familiar color for the players here. When the breeze arrives, one can tell from the gentle swaying of the grass here. The buildings here are also old-fashioned. It looked like a town constructed with conservatism in mind. There are nostalgic chimneys at the top of the houses here. This didn’t spoil the experience for the players here, it was refreshing in its own unique manner…
The wedding ceremony between Lisbeth and Kirito will take place on a grassy field with a boundless horizon.
Kirito and Liz only invited close friends to this nuptial ceremony. Unlike Wu Yan & Asuna who invited major guilds and top players, effectively involving the entire player base of Aincrad.
This is one of the reasons why they chose this place to hold the wedding. It wouldn’t get as crowded even if the players found out. It’s unknown if Liz preferred to keep her big day low-key or because Kirito preferred to stay out of the public’s view, either way this event turned out to be a small-scaled one.
Wu Yan’s two cent on the matter is that Kirito didn’t have that much money to throw a lavish wedding, even if his wife is the boss of one of the best equipment shops in this game.
The 59th-floor’s labyrinth isn’t that far from Danac. The players who tried their hands at the labyrinth know about Danac for the most part. When Asuna led the raid team, she made this place their temporary holdout. This is why they were familiar with the layout of Danac.
Thus, the household of three descended the teleport platform with Asuna leading them.
It has been 3 years since SAO’s server fired up. The raid players working hard to clear this game are operating on the higher floors. The 59th-floor is still a challenging floor for sure but it isn’t as hard as the upper floors. Few players came to this place. On the way here, Wu Yan, Asuna, and Yui didn’t spot a single player.
Walking on the dirt road, the buildings were sparsely distributed to the left and right sides. The NPCs are going about their daily chores, drawing water from the well, washing clothes, making food, and jogging. Come tomorrow, these NPCs will still be doing the same things and it didn’t look like they had any complaints.
Their repetitive actions formed a part of the beauty that made up the soul of this beautiful little town. A scenery is only beautiful when life is bursting at the seams. The NPCs played a crucial role in giving this place an exuberant air.
Soon, there were no more buildings to be seen and the NPCs also stopped appearing. Grass replaced the buildings as the color green took over everyone’s vision. A great grassy plain appeared in front of Wu Yan & co.
On this vast expanse of grass, a few white-clothes-lined tables were set up with a giant tree providing the shade. Dozens of players could be seen going around the tables. They were either chatting loudly or busy with whatever they were doing with their hands. They could faintly discern the sound of cheerful laughter from where they were.
Wu Yan & co knew they came to the right place.
“Oh~~~”
When Wu Yan & co approached, the sharp-eyed Klein noticed them first. He laughed heartily.
“They are here! They are here! The model family is here!”
Wu Yan and Asuna both exchanged a smile. They accepted Klein’s praise with relatively grace. Quickening their steps, they approached the venue.
“It has been a while, you’re still as quirky as ever…”
Wu Yan teased Klein.
Klein didn’t take it to heart.
“Oh, your achievements as the Fae Swordsman is something I regularly see on the news!”
Souta nodded. He started praising him.
“I didn’t think you could clear the 96th and 97th floor consecutively, you sure live up to your title as the strongest player…”
“It was pure luck. I found the floor boss room so I just went in there and wasted the boss…”
Agil’s lip twitched and he rubbed his smooth bald head.
“I think you’re the only player in this game that can talk about killing a floor boss like you’re just farming a bunch of creeps…”
“Yo, you guys came…”
Wu Yan , Asuna, Yui, Klein, Souta, and Agil turned around at the same time. They saw Kirito emerging from behind the giant tree with a white tuxedo. He looked at Wu Yan and he started laughing out loud.
“If you came a bit later, I would have barred you guys from entering the venue…”
“Well…”
Wu Yan shrugged.
“I would like to see you or anyone else try…”
Kirito pursed his lips as he threw Wu Yan an annoyed look. Asuna congratulated Kirito with Yui in tow.
“Kirito-kun, congratulations!”
Yui passed Kirito a box containing a gift.
“Uncle Kirito, congratulations. This is our gift to you two!”
“Oh?…”
Kirito received the present and he rubbed Yui’s head.
“Thank you guys so much!”
Alas, we will never know Kirito’s reaction to the box filled with fishes that were stacked on top of the clothes Asuna made.
Well, clothes can’t get stained in SAO and fishes don’t smell bad like they do in the real world so it should be fine…
“A present?…”
A hand reached from behind Kirito as the owner excitedly scanned the gift.
“A present from you two? I am looking forward to unboxing this…”
“Liz!”
Asuna started telling Liz who was wearing a white bridal gown off.
“It’s your wedding, mind your manners…”
“It’s fine, it’s fine!”
Liz waved her hands.
“We all know each other here, there’s no need to put up a front!”
“You…”
Asuna wasn’t sure if she should cry or laugh.
“Liz!”
Sachi, Shion, and Silica came running over. They glared at Liz while panting hard.
“The guests over there are waiting for you to greet them, don’t run off on your own like that!”
“Ahaha…”
Liz scratched her cheek in a bashful manner. She started defending herself.
“I am properly greeting the guests, look, Asuna and her gang came!”
“Onii-san, you guys came…”
Sachi beamed politely at them. She shifted her gaze downwards and she squatted down to greet Yui.
“Yui-chan, you came too?…”
“Nn!”
Yui nodded her head repeatedly.
“Yui wants to see the wedding!”
“There’s nothing much to see here…”
Shion mumbled.
“You should have seen Yan and Asuna’s wedding, now, that’s a wedding. It was huge and fun. This wedding ceremony… meh.”
Silica nodded when she recalled the wedding between Asuna and Wu Yan back then. Of course, Liz got mad.
“You girls!”
Liz gnashed her teeth.
“It’s my wedding today. If you’re gonna say stuff like that then…”
“Wah!”
Shion and Silica yelped as they scampered off. Liz yelled: “Get your butts back here”, and she gave chase while the others couldn’t do anything but gasp at this scene.
Is this a party or a wedding ceremony?
