owlsbooks Chapter 601: Foolish and Despicable Jealousy
Chapter 601: Foolish and Despicable Jealousy
Chapter 601: Foolish and Despicable Jealousy
Thirty minutes before rescuing Keyns and Yako, Kirito and Asuna reviewed the incident in the restaurant.
Kirito noticed something strange and felt that things were not that simple.
Facing the brown-haired beautiful girl who slightly raised her eyes from the chair next to him, he asked an extremely bold question while devoting most of his thoughts to analyzing this sense of disharmony.
"Asuna, have you ever been married?"
What answered him was a cold murderous look, a clenched fist, and a body bent forward, as if to teach him a lesson.
"No, it's okay, just pretend I never asked!"
Before he was beaten, Kirito quickly waved his hands and said, "No, no, I didn't mean anything special... It's just that you expressed some thoughts about marriage just now, and I wanted to talk about that, that's all!"
"What, what do you want to say?"
"After getting married in SAO, the item list will be shared. In a sense, there is no privacy at all."
"really……"
After marriage, the player's item bar will be completely integrated, and the upper limit of the item capacity will be expanded to the sum of the strength values of the two people.
Although this brings great convenience, it also leads to the danger of marriage fraud - getting rare items and running away.
Why is this system wrong?
Kirito suppressed his inner discomfort and asked, "So what happens to the item column when you get divorced?"
"what?"
Asuna was also stunned by this unexpected topic.
She had never been married, so she could only speak based on vague memories: "Well... I remember there were several options. For example, automatic allocation, taking turns to choose props, etc.... There were a few others, but I don't remember them."
"I really want to know the details. What should I do? ...Oh, Asuna, why don't you try to work with me..."
He hadn't finished speaking yet.
Asuna, with a murderous aura several times stronger than before, grasped the rapier at her waist with her left hand and smiled charmingly.
"How about trying it with you?"
"And, and... interrogate Heathcliff together?"
The coward dared not continue speaking.
About a minute later, Heathcliff gave his reply, recording in detail and concisely the relevant disposal of the prop column during the divorce.
In addition to the automatic equivalent distribution and interactive selection distribution that Asuna mentioned just now, there is also automatic distribution based on percentages, which means that alimony can be collected from the divorced party.
It's obviously a game, but it's so realistic.
These options can of course only be chosen with the consent of both parties at the time of divorce. Conversely, if one party disagrees with the distribution method, then divorce cannot be achieved under the system.
However, it is impossible for all divorces to end peacefully. What should you do if you meet someone who wants a divorce no matter what, but the other party refuses to divorce? There is no court in this world that can help mediate divorces.
The answer to this question is a sentence Heathcliff wrote at the end of the letter.
[By the way, unconditional divorce can only be established if your own item allocation rate is set to zero and the other party's is set to 100%. In this example, when the divorce is established and the item column is divided, all the items that the other party cannot accommodate will fall at their feet. Kirito, if your partner is ready to divorce unconditionally, I recommend that you choose to hide in a single room in a hotel. ]
Kirito was struck by lightning by the slightly teasing letter.
The original discomfort gradually increased, and his mood changed from anxiety to suspicion, then from certainty to astonishment, and finally to fear. He performed a face-changing show in front of Asuna.
“Ah…ah…that’s it, that’s it!”
He stood up suddenly and grabbed Asuna's shoulders. The girl who was backing away in fear blushed and said in an unnatural tone: "Wait... what, what... do you want to stay here... No, you should at least go to the hotel..."
Kirito didn't have the energy to think about this.
His brain was completely shocked by the hidden truth of this incident, like a groan squeezed out of his throat.
"One hundred for me and zero for the other. There is only one way to get a divorce like this!"
"Huh? What?"
"It's a farewell in death! The moment your spouse dies, your inventory will return to its original capacity, and all the items that can't be stored will fall at your feet.
That is to say... that is to say, when the president of the Golden Apple was killed, the rare ring in her inventory would not be taken away by the criminal, but would remain in the inventory of the marriage partner, or it would materialize at the feet of the marriage partner!"
Asuna blinked her chestnut eyes slowly, and the confusion that originally appeared in her eyes suddenly turned into a deep tremor.
"The ring...wasn't taken away?"
"No, that's not it."
Kirito let go of her shoulders and sat down heavily again. He said in a hoarse voice, "It should be said that it was taken away. Grimrock took the ring from his own props column. He is not the criminal in the false incident in the circle, but the mastermind behind the ring incident half a year ago."
After hearing what Kirito said, Asuna was so shocked that the rapier in her hand fell to the ground.
What followed was also what Xiaolin heard later.
The mastermind behind all this was Grimrock. He did not kill the president of Golden Apple directly, but commissioned a red player who specialized in doing such dirty things to do it.
And he knew the entire plan of the murders in the circle, so he naturally knew what the results would be if it was completely successful.
With ghost murders happening one after another in front of him, Schmidt, who is filled with guilt, will come here to confess. Keynes and Yezi, who are dressed as ghosts, will interrogate Schmidt here. He can then use this situation to completely bury the ring incident in the darkness. This is why the three people from the Smiling Coffin - PoH and his two men - appear here.
As for why Grimrock wanted to kill his wife?
For stupid and mean reasons.
--envy.
Grimrock and the president of Golden Apple are not only husband and wife in the game, but also in real life.
To her husband, she was an ideal wife without any flaws. One could even say that the idiom "the husband sings and the wife follows" was created for women like her. The two of them got along very harmoniously and never even had a quarrel.
But when faced with danger, some people will become devastated, while others will emit their own light.
The president of the Golden Apple is like this.
She changed from her submissive and timid personality in reality, and quickly cheered up in the game. She was much stronger than her husband in both combat and situation judgment. Despite her husband's opposition, she established a guild and recruited members. At the same time, she began to train herself in the hope of joining the strategy group and contributing to the early completion of the game.
Compared to reality, President Golden Apple can be said to be full of energy and lives a very fulfilling life.
But it was this wife who made her husband feel that the person he loved had disappeared. Even if he completed the game and returned to reality, the wife who obeyed him in everything and loved him would never come back.
This fear gradually eroded his heart.
So in order to prevent such a thing from happening again, and in order to return to reality and not accept the humiliation of being divorced by his wife, he chose to seal his wife forever in the game, in the memories here.
"Humiliation? You call it humiliation? Just because your wife stopped listening to you... you actually killed her for this reason? Someone who trained herself and her companions to be freed from SAO... hoping to join the Clearers one day, you actually... killed her for this reason..."
Sickening jealousy.
Kirito grasped the hilt of the sword with his right hand, but held his right hand tightly with his left hand.
His impulse and reason were colliding with each other.
"Just because of this reason? You are wrong. This is a very good reason. One day you will understand it. When you get love and are about to lose it..."
"No, you are the one who is wrong, Grimrock!"
The one who refuted him was Asuna.
There was obvious anger on her pretty face.
"Your feelings for your wife are not love at all, but possessiveness! If you dare to say that you still love her, take off the glove on your left hand! The president was still wearing the ring on her hand when she was killed, and you should have thrown it away long ago!"
Grimrock's shoulders trembled slightly.
Just like Kirito, he used his right hand to grab his left hand tightly, but his hand did not move at all. He just remained silent and did not seem to be ready to take off the leather gloves.
Apparently Asuna's guess was correct.
There was no ring on his hand at all!
Finally, Grimrock was handed over to Schmidt. This spear user who was once possessed by evil spirits was disgusted by Grimrock's actions and said that he would make him pay the price.
I guess Grimrock will end up being imprisoned in the never-ending Black Iron Palace, waiting for the game to end.
It really gave him a leg up.
Kainz and Yako came in front of Kirito and Asuna, stopped and bowed deeply, then looked at each other.
Finally, Yako spoke up: "Ms. Asuna, Mr. Kirito. I really don't know how to apologize and thank you... If you two hadn't arrived, we would have been killed a long time ago... and we wouldn't have been able to expose Grimrock's evil deeds."
"No, I just did something insignificant. It's you who did something amazing. Even Xiaolin praised you for being interesting to him."
"Mr. Kobayashi? Please give him my apologies."
Yako bowed once more, and then, together with Keyns, followed Schmidt's footsteps down the hill, while Kirito and Asuna stood there and watched them leave.
"I say, Kirito."
Asuna suddenly said, "If it were you...if you married someone and found out about that person's hidden side, what would you think?"
"what?"
Faced with this question that he had never thought about, Kirito was speechless. After all, he was just a little kid of fifteen years and six months old, and he had never tried to understand these social practices.
But after thinking desperately, he gave a somewhat shallow answer.
"I think I should feel lucky."
"Ok?"
"Because, I got married because I fell in love with every side of that person, right? So, if I can discover a new side of the other person after marriage and fall in love with him/her again, wouldn't that be a double benefit?"
Although this statement was extremely tacky, Asuna frowned, then tilted her head and smiled.
"Haha, you're such a weirdo."
"wack?"
"Forget it. Anyway, so much has happened and I'm hungry. Let's go get something to eat."
"That's true. Then let's try Argot's specialty, which looks like Okonomiyaki but the sauce has no flavor..."
"turn down."
Kirito was rejected on the spot and was about to leave dejectedly, but Asuna suddenly grabbed his shoulders.
Kirito turned around in shock, and saw an incredible scene before his eyes.
He has no idea how many times he has been involved in in-circle events, but every time it shocks people.
In Aincrad, all sensory information can be converted into digital files through the lines, so it is absolutely impossible for so-called supernatural phenomena to occur. So what we see now is either a server bug or an illusion produced by the brain in the real world.
A little further north on the hill, next to the moss-covered tombstone standing at the root of the crooked old tree, a female player with a half-transparent body and a faint golden glow appeared.
The man's slender body was covered in minimal metal armor.
She had a thin sword hanging from her waist and a shield on her back. This short-haired woman looked very kind and beautiful, and her eyes, like the several players Kirito knew, had a strong light in them.
Only a raider who hopes to end this death game with his own sword would have such a look.
The female player, with a calm smile, just stared at Kirito and Asuna quietly, but soon she stretched out her right hand towards them as if to hand them something.
Kirito and Asuna also stretched out their right hands to her at the same time, and when their palms felt the heat, they clenched their hands.
The heat flowed into Kirito's body and ignited a fire in his heart, and after turning into the words he wanted to convey, it flowed out from his lips.
"We will carry on your legacy... One day, we will conquer this game and free everyone from here."
"Yes, it will. So, please bless us."
Asuna's whispers were carried by the night wind to the female swordsman. A brilliant smile appeared on her transparent face.
The next moment, there was no one in that place anymore. After the two put down their hands, they stood at the scene for a long time.
Finally, Asuna firmly grasped Kirito's right hand, smiled and said to him: "Go back, you have to continue working hard tomorrow."
"...That's true. I hope we can break through the current front line within this week."
Kirito smiled back.
Then, the two turned and walked down the hill, starting to head towards the main street.
(End of this chapter)