“Onegaishimasu Leafa-sama! We’re imploring you to see reason! We can’t go back yet! Not without completing objective!”

“Yeah, that’s right!”

“We didn’t just come here for nothing right?”

“Sakuya-sama will be disappointed in us if we failed her!”

“We don’t even know whether the locals are aggressive or not! We have to gather information! And we need you with us now as our commander!”

A group of faeries in the sky, some of whom were among the top players which Lady Sakuya had assigned to Leafa as her temporary aides just for this mission, were pleading for their commander to go on with the mission as they were already halfway to their destination.

Upon reading the system message, their leader wanted to return back to Allne immediately to see whether her brother was there beyond the barrier with it now lifted or not... But they couldn’t allow it. If only they could contact Sakuya-sama... But unfortunately they were currently unable to do so as none of the items for communication worked...

Among the group, there were some who sided with Leafa, but as most among them who supported her were of different race, openly supporting her where none of her closest aides were doing so would probably undermine her position as the Sylphs’ second-in-command, so helplessly watching the exchange between the Sylph faction was all that they could do.

Amongst them were Leafa’s closest friends: Sinon, Lizbeth, Silica with her blue feathered little dragon Pina on her shoulder and lastly, the only salamander in their group, Klein.

Sinon, Leafa, Lizbeth, Silica and Klein were in the middle of a quest in the Leprechaun territory in a cavernous maze when they suddenly found themselves inside the City Hall of Alne. It was a not-so-welcome experience only familiar to the SAO surviviors among the group as they had lived through something very similar in SAO, when they were teleported to a similar place in the Town of Beginnings where Kayaba Akihiko then announced to all them players that they were trapped inside the game and that they had to clear all the floors if they wished to escape...

Their worries about the similarities to that death game unfortunately became true in a sense as they, including the hundreds of players around them couldn’t access the menu no matter what they did...

But it was not long before they realised that this was different. As expected from the experienced full-divers, they could easily tell that this was not supposed to be the VR that they were so familiar with... The difference was obvious as the experience was more akin to when they were in reality, but still, there was still something very wrong that they could not put their fingers on.

It was not so obvious at first but upon further inspection, they soon realised that their feeling of sensation were much different than it was in reality or even in full-dive. Their eyes, much sharper as they could now see much better; their ears, more sensitive as they could hear things from longer distances ever more clearly, especially Sinon as she could even make out what the players in the furthest corner of the hall were whispering about...

On top of that, the level of detail was simply astounding as each of the pebbles and rocks around them that they had thought it worthwhile to check out closely didn’t even share the same texture with each other like that in ALO, or any other game in VR that they have played for that matter.

As they were among the top players of Alfheim Online, they were quite useful in pointing out such differences and irregularities inside the game, eventually leading them to the unsettling conclusion that, this was not a game anymore, which was a scary thought on it’s own.

But even though they were scared, they wouldn’t be counted as veterans when it came to saving people for nothing, thanks to one black swordsman and his ‘princess’ who managed to touch their hearts with their strength and resolve... Just being closer to the couple was enough to give them the strength they needed to move forward... So they worked hard with the present Faery Lords to calm the panicking players all the while trying to quickly find solutions to their increasing amount of problems by the minute.

So since the ‘Transition’, they’ve been busy with helping the Faery Lords and searching for the others, especially Kirito and Asuna as they really wanted the couple to be here with them, even though they had no idea of the dangers of possible threats that may be awaiting for them in the future...

“But the barrier has been lifted! We have to..” One of her aides didn’t give her the chance to finish her sentence as he made his case,

“We have to consider the safety of the others first, Leafa-sama! Lady Sakuya has already promised that she would send in her most trusted forces to the World Tree as soon as the barrier has been lifted and I do believe that the possibility of her going there as well to be high!”

“But...”

As she was about to make her ‘last stand’, the blue cait sith in their party let out an angry grunt as she said, “damn! They’ve kidnapped one of our own!”

““““What?””””

“He is a Sylph by the looks of it and from what I can see, he seems tied up...”

“Is he okay? Who is it, It’s not onii-chan right?” At seeing Leafa’s panic, Sinon briefly looked at her best-friend, before shaking her head as she continued observing her target...

“I can’t make out, have to get closer...” To Sinon’s suggestion, Leafa nodded her head then, turning to her aids who were beginning to reconsider going back...

“You’ve heard what she said, let’s go.” And with that, they recovered their formation as they flew at full speed towards the locals where most only saw them as just a black dot.

Leafa sighed in defeat as they were slowly getting closer,

[Today, I’m really failing as a commander... If Sinon hadn’t noticed it, we might’ve left one of our own in the hands of a potential enemy by retreating... I’m an idiot...]

[I think Sakuya-nee overestimates me... Do I even have what it takes to be a leader?]

She was brought back from her musings by a small hand on her right shoulder, it was Silica’s...

“Leafa-chan! Feeling down doesn’t suit you, come on, smile!” As they were flying, Silica held onto her back as she then forced the now struggling Sylph to smile with her fingers which was exactly what the depressed Sylph needed as it seems, both of them began giggling and laughing...

“Silica, just what am I going to do with you?” She asked through her laugh before noticing the curious glances coming from the others which embarrassed the two girls as they let go of each other,

”Hehehe~” the little cait sith girl let out a sweet giggle as she then left the Sylph go.

That Silica somehow always managed to get her spirits up, even though she was feeling embarrassed thanks to feeling exposed to her underlings, she was no longer feeling as hopeless...

[I just have to try to do better! So that I won’t be a burden to onii-chan! And maybe one day, I can even deserve to stay by his side...]

Now more resolved than ever, Leafa, along with her team got closer and closer to the ‘growing dot’, to the point of it not being even a dot anymore. Eventually, Sinon could finally make out that it was not Kirito who was kidnapped, but some other Sylph she probably met before but forgot as he seemed somewhat familiar to the blue haired Cait Sith.

She felt conflicted whether to feel relieved that Kirito was not the person in question as they didn’t know if they could save him or not due to insufficient information about the locals, or feel disappointed that Kirito still was not found, but one thing she was sure about would be her desire to pay him back somehow, probably by saving him...

She would be lying if she said that she didn’t want Kirito to be in danger. It would have been nice if Kirito had been the one to get kidnapped and her, his hero, Sinon saving him... And as a reward, he kisses her... It has been the main theme of her fantasies lately... Maybe it was why she chose to become a med student in real life... To save him... And maybe deep down, she had hoped that it should only be her who saves Kirito of his cancer and then together, they will...

“Shin-chan?” Leafa urged her to speak as she noticed the blue Cait Sith acting a little off.

“It’s not Kirito, he seems to be tied up... No signs of any harm done as far as I can see... ” Sinon reported tersely,

“Shall we engage them, Leafa-sama?” The underlings were looking at their leader with obvious unease as they were the ones now finding the idea to return more tempting, their lack of confidence in their leader was evident not just by their tone of voice, but also from their face.

Their leader just shook her head before she ordered,

“We will not go back! They’ve already seen us, so they might think we’re bringing in reinforcements if they saw us heading back... Let’s get on the ground!” Right after hearing this, her friends immediately complied with her order with a,

“Yoshha!”

“““Hai!”””

“But Leafa-sa..” Similar thoughts like, [now that this is a potential hostage situation, we have to be extra careful when dealing with them, if only Sakuya-sama was here with us,] was on her underlings’ minds.

“I said to follow my lead, now!” Leafa commanded her aides as she then descended after her friends, the other faeries soon following suit, albeit unwillingly as they lacked confidence in her.

After they followed a parabolic line on the air down to the ground where there was now only about a 30 meter distance to the ‘locals’ who were readily pointing their ‘wands’ at them, they softly landed, their wings disappearing one by one as they too were pointing their weapons at the people in front of them; Leafa and her Sylphs with their wands, Sinon with her bow, Klein with his Samurai Sword, Lizbeth with her axe and Silica with her dagger with Pina on her head, intimidatingly flapping her small wings, glaring at the ‘kidnappers’ with hostility...

Both sides silently remained in a deadlock as they watched each other’s next move. When none came, Leafa pulled back her wand to the protests of her aides and slowly moved forward towards the ‘locals’ with confident but careful steps.

When there was just about 10 meters left, she stopped where she was, indicating to her right where the tied up Sylph who was currently lying on the ground lifelessly, she voiced out, hoping that they will understand her resolve if not her words,

“We want our comrade back!”