"I really appreciate your help, Ryuto. I'll pay you back — whatever reward feels fair."
Ryuto shook his head, waving the offer aside.
"Forget the reward. How are you holding up? We can wait until tomorrow if you need time to collect yourself."
Silica looked at him for a moment, then shook her head firmly.
"I'm fine. Please — take me to the forty-seventh floor now."
He could see it in her eyes. She wasn't fine, not really, but she wasn't broken either. The grief was still raw, but underneath it was something more urgent — a desperate, focused need to move, to do something, to fix this before the window closed.
Ryuto didn't push. He simply nodded.
"Then let's go."
They set off toward the safe town together, following the forest path back through the trees.
On the way, Silica talked. Quietly at first, then more steadily as the words found their own rhythm.
It was more or less what Ryuto had already pieced together. Other players had taken a liking to her — or rather, to the novelty of her Familiar. They'd called her the Dragon Tamer, treated her like a mascot, something cute to show off in group photos and party introductions. She'd grown tired of it. Frustrated. And when the frustration tipped over into pride, she'd set out alone to prove she didn't need anyone.
The forest had answered that particular question with brutal efficiency.
By the time she finished, her voice had gone quiet again, and her eyes were wet.
Ryuto watched her for a moment — this small, earnest girl blaming herself in real time, picking apart every decision that had led to Pina's death — and felt something settle in his chest. Quiet and certain.
He reached over and placed his hand gently on top of her head.
Her dark honey-colored hair was soft under his palm. He kept his voice low and steady.
"Pina is going to come back. That's not a maybe."
Silica went very still.
The warmth of his hand, the certainty in his voice — something about it cut straight through the guilt she'd been drowning in. Her cheeks flushed before she could stop them, a slow pink creeping up from her collar.
She pulled her hood up just a little further.
"...Mm."
The safe town materialized around them as the forest thinned, its familiar buildings and stone streets spreading out ahead. They made straight for the central plaza and the teleport gate at its heart.
They were almost there when a voice rang out behind them.
"Silica! Hey — Silica!"
They both turned.
Two players were jogging toward them from across the plaza — one heavyset, one wiry, both slightly out of breath and wearing the particular expression of people who had been searching for a while and were very relieved to have found what they were looking for.
Ryuto recognized the type immediately. He'd seen similar faces on the first floor, hovering hopefully around the edges of other people's adventures.
The two skidded to a stop in front of Silica, chests heaving.
"Silica — we finally found you." The heavier one looked up at her with unconcealed hope. "Come on, team up with us. It'll be fun."
Silica's expression went through several things at once. She glanced sideways at Ryuto, then back at them, jaw set.
"I'm already in a party," she said, her voice polite but leaving no room. "And we have somewhere to be. Another time."
The two pairs of eyes drifted over to Ryuto.
He offered a small, neutral nod.
"...Sorry," Silica added, already reaching for his arm. She looped hers through it and steered him toward the gate with surprising decisiveness, leaving the two players standing in the middle of the plaza watching them go.
Once they were clear, Ryuto glanced at her with quiet amusement.
"Fan club?"
Silica heard the teasing in his tone and immediately stiffened.
"I'm sorry — I hope that wasn't too much trouble—"
"Silica." He kept walking, unbothered. "I was just curious. Relax."
She looked at him sideways. Then, slowly, the tension left her shoulders.
"...They invited me because of Pina," she said after a moment, her voice softer now. "Once people heard I had a Winged Dragon Familiar, I started getting called the Dragon Tamer. It sounds nice." A small, wry pause. "But mostly they just wanted a mascot."
Ryuto heard the weight underneath that last word and didn't push on it.
"I brought it up without thinking," he said. "Sorry."
Silica shook her head.
"It's alright." A beat. Then, quietly: "If it hadn't bothered me so much, I wouldn't have gone off alone to prove something. I wouldn't have nearly gotten killed." She glanced up at him. "And I wouldn't have met you."
Ryuto had no immediate response to that.
He was still searching for one when a group of players rounded the corner ahead of them — five or six strong, moving with the loose, easy confidence of people who knew the floor well. Leading them was a red-haired woman, tall and sharp-eyed, with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
She spotted Silica and her face lit up with the particular brightness of someone who had just found something entertaining.
"Well, well." She drifted away from her group, closing the distance with unhurried steps. "Silica. You made it out of the forest."
Her eyes dropped to Silica with pointed, deliberate slowness.
"Where's the lizard?"
Silica's expression shuttered.
Ryuto stepped forward, placing himself just slightly between them. His voice came out easy and flat.
"We're heading to the forty-seventh floor. Hill of Memories." He met the woman's eyes without particular hostility, just a calm, immovable weight behind the words. "We're in a hurry."
The red-haired woman blinked.
She studied him — the cloak, the calm, the way he'd moved without thinking to put himself between her and Silica. Something shifted behind her eyes. Not recognition. Calculation.
She hadn't seen him before. She was certain of that. But the way he carried himself, the ease of it —
Big fish.
By the time the thought finished forming, Ryuto had already taken Silica's hand and turned toward the gate. The woman watched them go, her smile slowly returning, sharpened now into something different.
She turned to the player nearest her.
"Send word to the guild. Someone just volunteered to escort Silica to the forty-seventh floor." A pause. "A man who goes alone to a high floor to protect a low-level player like that? He's not small fry. Make sure the others know."
The player opened their menu and started typing.
The redhead watched the spot where the two had vanished into the gate's light.
"Thanks for the gift, Silica."
The teleport light released them onto the forty-seventh floor.
The change was immediate and total.
Warm air, flower-scented and gentle, washed over them the moment the gate's glow faded. The world ahead was a sea of color — fields of blooming flowers stretching toward the horizon in every direction, petals drifting lazily on the breeze. Couples moved through the landscape in ones and twos, unhurried, leaning close.
Ryuto glanced around, then said helpfully, "The forty-seventh floor is famous for this. It's basically Aincrad's date spot — couples come here all the time."
He realized, about two seconds too late, exactly how that had landed.
Silica had gone the color of the red flowers to their left. The flush started at her cheeks and kept going, creeping down her neck, past her collar, presumably continuing at a rate that suggested it had no intention of stopping.
She stared very hard at the middle distance.
Ryuto opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again.
"...The Hill of Memories is in the southern section. We should get moving."
The mention of Pina cut through everything else like a key turning in a lock. Silica straightened, refocused, her expression shifting back to that quiet, determined look he was starting to recognize.
The flush receded. Mostly.
Ryuto exhaled quietly and fell into step beside her.
The sky above was clear and endlessly blue. The flowers nodded in the breeze around them as they walked. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small, honest part of him admitted that there were worse ways to spend a vacation day than this — warm air, a beautiful floor, and a girl who made embarrassing things happen entirely by accident.
He kept that thought to himself and kept walking.