After night fell, the entire city sank into endless brilliance and lights. Perhaps only at moments like this could one truly feel how different humanity was from every other form of life.
The wisdom and creativity possessed by humans were unmatched by any other living creature encountered so far.
"Woooah!!!"
"Marry him! Marry him!"
"I can't believe we actually ran into something like this here, it's so romantic!"
Just as everyone was immersed in the beauty of the city's nightscape, bursts of cheering suddenly rose from the nearby crowd.
Curious, Sato turned his head and looked over, spotting a tightly packed crowd.
At the center of the crowd was an obvious open space reserved for the two protagonists of the event.
A young man was kneeling on one knee, nervously yet expectantly holding up a diamond ring box toward the girl standing before him. His eyes were filled with anticipation and sincere love, and because of his excitement, even the hand holding the ring box trembled slightly.
Beside him, the girl tightly covered her mouth with both hands, staring at him with eyes full of disbelief.
The surrounding crowd continued cheering and shouting, "Marry him! Marry him!"
"Marry him!"
Eriri also excitedly bounced around beside Sato, happily joining in the commotion.
Her golden twin tails rose and fell with her movements, the soft ends of her hair brushing lightly against Sato's face, causing a strange ticklish sensation.
"Don't get so excited, calm down a little."
Sato helplessly held Eriri by the shoulders and pointed toward the floor.
"The floor down there is all glass. What if you somehow stomp it broken?"
That's right, the edge of the Skytree's second observation deck was made entirely of glass, and beneath it stretched the vast city below.
Of course, since they had designed an all-glass observation deck like this, safety was guaranteed. Even swinging a sledgehammer probably wouldn't do much damage to it.
"Eh?! It can't possibly be that fragile, right?!"
Eriri jumped in fright, her small face turning pale as she stared at the glass beneath her feet.
"Eek!!!"
Suddenly, Eriri let out a terrified scream. She hadn't noticed it earlier, but only now did she suddenly realize that the floor beneath her feet was transparent glass.
Looking downward from above, she could see the endless streams of traffic on the roads beside the Skytree. At this height, the cars looked as tiny as ants.
So high!!!
Eriri's face turned deathly pale. She looked so frightened she was nearly in tears, and her legs gave out as she involuntarily collapsed weakly.
Sato noticed something was wrong and, while surprised, quickly caught Eriri and pulled her into his arms.
"Eriri, are you alright?!"
The shaken girl had crystal-clear tears gathering in her eyes. Pressing her lips together, she looked at him with grievance-filled sapphire-blue eyes and said,
"Why did you have to point that out?"
Sato opened his mouth, but in the end only smiled helplessly.
So as long as you didn't know, you wouldn't be scared, huh?
Isn't that just covering your ears while stealing a bell?
Not far away, the girl being proposed to had finally recovered from the shock and joy of the proposal.
Complex tears flowed from her eyes.
There was surprise, relief at having her wishes fulfilled, and hope for the future...
She slowly reached out and took the diamond ring box, that symbol of crystallized love, from the young man's hand. Then she gently nodded and gazed deeply at him.
"I will!"
"Waaaah!!!"
In an instant, the entire area erupted with excitement.
Sato supported Eriri while watching the scene, completely oblivious to the several pairs of gloomy eyes staring at the two of them nearby.
"Hehe, little blonde..."
"So the one with the biggest advantage... is Sawamura-san?"
"Looks like time is running short."
Sato, meanwhile, remained utterly unaware of all this.
...
After coming down from the Skytree, the group followed Yuuki Asuna's recommendation and headed to a restaurant.
"The owner of this restaurant graduated from Totsuki Academy, and the quality of the food here is exceptionally good!"
"Totsuki Academy?"
Kasumigaoka Utaha frowned slightly and looked at Yuuki Asuna in confusion. Clearly, she had never heard of Totsuki Academy.
Just as Asuna was about to explain, Sato, who had already finished observing the restaurant's interior decorations, casually spoke without even turning his head.
"That's Japan's top culinary academy. Every graduate there belongs among the best chefs."
"I heard the school has an extremely high elimination rate. More than ninety percent of the students exist purely to become sharpening stones for the remaining ten percent."
Yuuki Asuna looked at Sato in surprise, tiny sparks of admiration flickering in her beautiful eyes.
"I didn't expect you to know so much, Sato!"
As Japan's highest-tier culinary academy, some things about it weren't something ordinary people could simply guess.
However...
Yuuki Asuna suddenly remembered the first time she met Sato. It had been their very first encounter, deep within the dark forest of SAO's first floor.
Thinking about it now, Asuna couldn't help feeling embarrassed, because their first meeting truly hadn't been very graceful.
Especially after today's visit to Comiket, where she had seen all those so-called 18+ doujinshi involving tentacles, vines, Ditto, and slimes "binding" girls, she finally understood why Sato's expression back then had seemed so strange.
After all, no matter how you looked at it, the way she appeared back then really did...
Asuna's face reddened slightly before she quickly forced herself to stop thinking about it.
Then she took a deep breath.
The extraordinary swordsmanship Sato displayed back then was something even she still couldn't replicate now. And at the time, there had been no such thing as cultivating swordsmanship within SAO itself, meaning Sato had definitely been a swordsmanship expert in real life as well.
That had also been proven during the school festival incident.
So putting everything together, Sato's background definitely wasn't ordinary either. Perhaps he was even the inheritor of some swordsmanship tradition.
After all, ordinary kendo schools could never produce someone that strong!
At that moment, a restaurant attendant approached to take their order.
Yuuki Asuna skillfully began making arrangements, and in that instant, the aura around her transformed completely into that of a refined young lady. As the daughter of Japan's largest electronics manufacturing corporation, she naturally frequented places like this often.
And while casually surveying the restaurant, Sato suddenly spotted a familiar figure.