Sword Art Online - Alternative Reality

The Calm- CHP.4

I woke up to the first rays of sunlight that shone into our isolated world. A strong sense of drowsiness still filled me after crashing around midnight and I could go for a few more hours. Off pure willpower, I managed to sit up, the luxuries sleeping bag clinging onto me the entire time. Managing to resist the temptation of collapsing back to the ground, I slipped the warm cotton off and stretched, an impressive yawn escaping my mouth.

Looking around, I saw that Argo was still sleeping, and could practically see the snot ball floating over her head. Her cheeks were all puffed up, giving the impression of a large rodent hibernating for the winter. Giggling at the sight, I looked around for the last member of our party and found the dark figure a few meters away, shuffling through the snow. Sighing, I left the comfort of the sleeping bag and walked over to him. Despite noticing me, he continued to shovel up the snow in search of something, but still had the basic courtesy of at least saying good morning. After returning the greeting, I knelt beside him.

"So, watcha doing?"

"Playing off a hunch."

"...Get any sleep last night?"

"I dozed off here and there."

So not at all. It was disappointing that we couldn't alleviate all of his problems, but his mood had improved significantly and he seemed to have regained his resolve. It was the most we could do, unfortunately, but if all I could do was support my friends, then I'd do my damndest to be the best one out there.

"Um, thanks...for everything Liz."

"What are friends for right? So...what exactly are you looking for?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but a light shined from the spot he was digging. Grabbing it was his gloved hand, he pulled up an exotic, white crystal with a light blue outline. Its surface was uneven and several segments of it jutted out like the structures on the mountain top. The question was, why was something like this down here?

"I see...Had a feeling there was more to this place."

Ignoring the massive question mark over my head, he tapped the object and showed me the name. 'Crystallite Ingot.'

"Wa-wah? That's the ingot? But why is it down here?"

"Hm...well the old man never said that killing the dragon would cause the ingot to drop, just that it would lead to it...crystals from above...' Crystallite'...haha, you gotta be kidding me."

Tossing the ingot to me, Kirito stood up and cleaned his gloves off as he looked around the cave.

"I'm still confused. What does any of that have to do with this?"

"Well, there were a bunch of crystals up there right? The ingot looked like it was refined from those. The only guy around who could pull that off is our dear dragon, probably by eating them and, you know, sending it out. Which would make this place its nest, not a trap. Think I got that right Argo?"

Still processing Kirito's deduction, Argo rose like a zombie and threw a thumbs up, before collapsing back onto the ground. I was about to sigh when I finally put two and two together.

"Wa-wait...if it ate those crystals and it got processed in its stomach, wouldn't that make this-"

"Yep, dragon poop."

"..."

Winding my arm back as far as it could, I threw the ingot at his smug face without care of going orange. I wanted to take back all of my concern from last night but had to deal with him catching it and throwing it back at me. After another minute of this back and forth, he eventually opened up his inventory and caught the ingot using it. I wanted to give him a good pummeling for his antics, but something else came to mind.