Chapter 18
The float attached to the fishing line hadn't moved even once. Drowsiness invaded my consciousness as I watched the dancing sunlight reflected off the sparkling water ripples of the lake.
I made a huge yawn and pulled up the fishing line. Only an empty silver hook on the end shined in the light; the bait that I had put on it was gone.
Over ten days had passed since we moved to the 22nd floor. In order to gather food each day, I had erased my two-handed sword skill, which I trained briefly in a long time ago, and exchanged it for the fishing skill. I began to imitate Taikoubou [1] in fishing. But for some reason, I just couldn't catch anything. The training score had just passed 600, so I didn't expect any big catches, but I thought that I should have at least caught something by now. Instead, I simply spent day after day wasting the cases of bait that I bought in the village.
"Gah, this is so annoying..."
I muttered my complaints, tossed the fishing tackle aside, and then threw myself onto the ground. The wind that rushed over the water was icy cold, but the overcoat that Asuna had made me with her sewing skills kept me warm. Asuna was still in the middle of training that skill, thus the coat wasn't as good as clothing from the NPC stores. But since it was useable and kept me warm, there weren't any problems.
It was now «The month of the Cypress» in Aincrad, which meant it was November back in Japan. Although it was almost winter, fishing in SAO didn't have anything to do with seasons. Maybe it was simply because I had used up all my luck on getting my beautiful wife.
As my thoughts reached this, my entire being was filled with happiness, and a wide smile spread across my face. Then suddenly, a voice reached my ears.
"How did you do?"
I leapt up in surprise and saw a man standing there as I turned around.
He was wrapped in thick clothing, including a hat with ear flaps, and had fishing tackle in his hands just like me. But the surprising part was his age. No matter how I looked at it, he seemed at least fifty years old. The eyes behind metal framed glasses showed the age of a senior. Amongst the hardcore game addicts of SAO, it was extremely rare to see someone so old. Actually, I had never even seen one before. Maybe—?
“I'm not an NPC.”
He smiled bitterly as if he had read my thoughts, and then slowly descended down the slope.
“S-Sorry. I was just wondering...”
“No, it's fine. It's understandable. I'm most probably the oldest player here.”
His healthy body rocked as he gave a hearty "Wa-ha-ha" laugh.
“Excuse me.”
He said as he sat down next to me. He took out a bait case from his hip, then awkwardly opened a pop-up menu, retrieved his fishing rod, and put the bait on it.
“My name is Nishida. I'm a fisherman here. In Japan, I worked as the head of maintenance for a company called the Tohto Broadband Connection. I'm sorry but I don't have my business cards with me.”
He laughed again.
“Ah...”
I could mostly guess the reason for why he was in this game. Tohto was a network operator company that had been cooperating with Argus. They were responsible for taking care of the network that linked to the SAO servers.
“I'm Kirito. I moved here from the upper levels a while ago. Nishida oji-san... must have been... maintaining the SAO network connection...?”
“I was in charge of it.”
