"How old are you, Suzuki-kun?"
After they had sat down and taken a few bites, Hidemura finally seemed to settle down a little. Under the room's increasingly soft yellow light, he studied the young man seated across from Argo with the practiced eye of someone used to dealing with all kinds of people. Satoru was not especially handsome, but he seemed polite without being stiff.
He understood how to balance ease and restraint. He did not make Argo's father, whom he was meeting for the first time, feel distant from him, but he did not come across as careless either.
His clothes looked old from having been washed too many times, but they were clean, and that was not a bad thing. Overall, the first impression was perfectly average: a very ordinary young man. Hidemura had managed a company for many years, so he had naturally met plenty of brilliant graduates from prestigious schools. With some of them, even a simple conversation carried the sense of rich, colorful minds behind elegant words.
Unexpectedly, after meeting so many vibrant people, this standard, plain, ordinary person in front of him gave Hidemura a familiar feeling he had not experienced in a long time.
Without letting it show, Hidemura glanced again at his daughter on his right. The girl had kept her head lowered the whole time. Though she was trying her best to act casual, she seemed afraid to meet Satoru's eyes. As someone who had been through life, the old father sensed what was going on in his daughter's heart and could not help letting out a sorrowful sigh inside.
"I'm twenty-two. Almost twenty-three, I suppose," Satoru answered politely.
"A little older than I expected..."
"Yes. Even I don't really feel it. I never paid attention to that kind of thing inside SAO. It was only after I returned to this world and found out I had to update my resident registration information that I vaguely realized so much time had really passed." Satoru nodded as well.
"Saki is sixteen this year. She really was too playful before." Thinking of his daughter trapped in a hospital bed for two years, Hidemura also felt a pang of pain. "I never made enough time to look after her back then, and I have regretted it ever since... She should have been enjoying school life properly, but instead she had to face the pressure of death in that virtual world. Every time I went to see her, the thought of her being alone made my heart twist."
"I was always afraid that one day, she would be killed by the monsters in there…"
Satoru nodded in silence, though this time a small retort rose in his heart.
With her full-AGI build, once Argo got moving, stopping her was the hard part. It was already a blessing if she didn't drag monsters onto other players… and her entire business model reeked of pure capitalist exploitation. She squeezed the frontliners dry with the prices she charged for information. A sharp, shady merchant like her would never be the first to die.
"Miss Kurosaki is clever and unpredictable, and she helped quite a few people in the game. She was very well liked. You have an excellent daughter."
But of course, that was what he had to say out loud.
Hidemura only gave a helpless laugh and shook his head.
Then Satoru felt his bare, sockless foot get stepped on under the table. He instinctively tried to pull back, but the person across from him pinned him down hard. Taking full advantage of her slippers, she pressed the plastic sole into the top of his foot with force. His toes, in particular, throbbed with a dull pain.
"..."
Expressionless, he looked at Saki, who still had her head lowered and was eating obediently like a proper young lady. Sensing his gaze, Saki lifted her head and gave him a perfect smile, the kind that did not show her teeth.
Hidemura did not notice the skirmish under the table. He only saw his daughter's bright smile, and the faint worry on his face deepened a little.
"After all, being away from society for two years must make it hard to adjust," he continued. "Saki is all right. We have already found a school suited to her. No matter what, her studies still need to continue. If possible, I hope she can make up for those two lost years of youth that should have been happy ones."
Saki nodded obediently.
"Great. Just great..." Satoru's mouth twitched slightly. Damn it, this rat was getting stronger and stronger. He could not move too much either. If Argo's father, sitting right beside them, saw him making a fool of himself, it would be far too embarrassing.
"What are you doing now, Suzuki-kun? At your age, you are not covered by the government's Survivor Compensation Program, are you?"
"Y-yes. But I stopped going to school a long time ago anyway, so it does not affect me much. For now, I suppose I should think about making a living first. It would be good if I could find a decent job."
"Have you talked it over with your family?"
"My parents passed away when I was young. My only relative is my uncle, but he has gone back to Kyoto. I am staying in Tokyo for now," Satoru answered truthfully.
Hidemura's expression grew a little more serious. He gave a quiet hum and nodded, thinking for a moment.
"So you have not made any plans for where you will settle in the future either?"
"The situation is not exactly optimistic, so for many things I will have to take them one step at a time. If what I am doing now turns out well... I might go to Kyoto and live with my uncle."
"I see..." Hidemura sighed softly. Then he looked at his daughter, sitting there so obediently and properly, hesitated a few times, and seemed to make up his mind. "Suzuki-kun, no matter what, I still need to thank you for looking after Saki in the game. My daughter has always been rather mischievous."
"Mischievous isn't the word..." Satoru's mouth twitched.
"There is no need to spoil her that much. If she does something wrong, you should still scold her properly." Hidemura said, "Suzuki-kun, you are already a mature member of society, while Saki is still young. She does not understand much yet and often causes trouble... What I mean is that the environments the two of you live in are different, so any friction between you would become more complicated and more serious."
"Ah, well, I am six or seven years older than her." Satoru nodded and answered as if that were obvious.
Saki, who had been sitting so nicely the whole time, faintly sensed something was off and glared at her dad.
"Mm. It is good that you understand. And if you go to Kyoto in the future... it is not exactly the other end of the country, but there will still be distance. Saki also needs to finish her studies. You will be at different stages, and your main circles of activity will be different too. It is even possible that you will grow more and more unfamiliar with each other."
"True." Satoru still sensed nothing wrong. After thinking about it, he felt the logic was sound, so he continued nodding.
Hidemura seemed to let out a breath of relief. Seeing how understanding Satoru was, he found the young man much easier to look at.
"I believe that in that death game, you and Saki must have gone through a great deal together. I am truly grateful for your concern for her... but right now, there are still many inconveniences. The most important issue is that Saki is still too young."
He hesitated for a moment.
"As a father, there are times when I have to do things that make my child dislike me. Even so, I still respect her feelings. How about this? When she is a little older... in two years, if the two of you spend those two years facing the vast difference in your positions and still think you are suited to each other, I will not be the one to ruin the mood."
"Two years?"
"Yes. Saki missed two years of classes, so she has to make them up properly. She will not have much free time of her own, and naturally, the time you two can meet will be reduced."
"Oh, so we just would not run into each other much for two years because we are busy."
"Exactly."
"Wow, that is just too..." Satoru showed a warm smile, his white teeth flashing with joy. Then he suddenly stopped, and his face went a little pale.
Across from him, Saki had lowered her head again, her face flushed red. That redness did not seem to be from emotion... but from how much force she was putting into it.
Hidemura looked puzzled.
"What is it?"
"Too... too much of a shame." Satoru forced the rest out through a pained smile.
"Ah. Please try to understand me," Hidemura said softly after a pause.
"I understand. I really do." Gritting his teeth, Satoru shot Saki a fierce look.
Step on it again and it will go flat!
"Hmph!"
All he got in return was a cool, disdainful snort from the girl.
"Look at me, making the atmosphere stiff. Let us talk about something else." Hidemura coughed. "Did you two have any amusing stories in the game?"
There were no amusing stories. There were plenty of incidents that could be called legal scams.
Satoru worked to move his attention away from his poor foot. After sorting through his thoughts and emotions, he lowered his voice slightly.
"Most things in SAO were pretty unpleasant... Speaking of which, I heard there are still players who have not returned. Have you heard about that, Mr. Kurosaki?"
Hidemura paused.
"Something must have gone wrong somewhere. The players who have not returned are still trapped inside a virtual environment. It is just that their numbers are tiny compared with the number of players who did return, so amid the much larger good news, the smaller bad news was quietly pushed out of sight." He frowned, then looked at Saki. "So strictly speaking... both you and I still have unfinished business."
"Is that... really true?" Saki seemed surprised too.
"Mm. A friend at the hospital mentioned it by chance." Hidemura thought for a moment. "Their condition is exactly the same as yours was before. The people in charge at the Ministry of Internal Affairs are still looking for a solution. Because of that, RECT is continuing to maintain the SAO servers. They are worried about the risk of shutting them down while real players' consciousnesses might still be inside the servers."
"Even after VRMMOs caused such a huge incident, there are still several FullDive games on the market doing extremely well." Satoru gave a wry smile and said it as if casually.
"No matter how you look at it, it really is an invention and project with enormous potential. Besides, there will always be people with too much curiosity. Once the first person takes the plunge and comes out unharmed, the worry in everyone else's hearts naturally lessens... So even with the SAO incident, FullDive virtual reality will continue to develop," Hidemura said.
"A typical example would be ALO?" Satoru asked.
"That one? Yes. It is probably the most representative example of what I just said." Hidemura nodded. "A game of the same type that appeared not long after the heavily criticized SAO incident. At first, no one thought well of it. RECT spent heavily to finally promote it, and the facts prove that the price was worth paying, because now FullDive is making a massive impact on the original traditional console hardware market."
"In truth, almost every manufacturer and company understood the value of the FullDive virtual reality that Kayaba developed. It is just that no one dared reach into the fire for chestnuts while the flames were still at their hottest. RECT Progress really does have nerve." Hidemura sighed. "And their technical foundation is solid too."
"Is the head of RECT's FullDive Division Nobuyuki Sugou?" Satoru continued asking.
"You know him?" Hidemura was somewhat surprised. "That is correct. I have met him a few times at corporate exchanges."
"I heard about him from a friend as well. She is a schoolmate of Sugou's, and she was previously responsible for observing the SAO servers."
"That is rather impressive."
"That is also how I learned there are still players who have not returned from SAO." Satoru pondered for a while, then continued in a slightly heavier tone. "She said that ALO and SAO have inexplicable similarities in their architecture."
"Similar...?" Saki asked.
"Mm. I asked her what the problem with that was, and she thought about it..." Satoru spoke slowly. "She said that if ALO really did copy SAO, then the players who originally could not wake up may have simply been moved, quietly, into a different cage, because the two architectures are so similar."
"Wha-?!" Saki cried out in surprise.
"It is ironic, isn't it? It feels as if this FullDive virtual reality stuff has never once been completely safe." Satoru shook his head.
He sighed, then added another line as if it were casual.
"If this is true too, then RECT will become the next Argus. Once a second incident like this is exposed, I am afraid no one will dare touch FullDive virtual environments anymore."
He looked at Hidemura.
"The traditional console hardware market would finally be able to breathe again."
At those words, the man who had been sitting through this dinner as Argo's father saw his eyes shift slightly.
The kind smile that had been resting at the corners of his mouth vanished.
In its place came a wary gaze carrying real pressure.