After Keita's birthday ended, everything seemed to return to the usual rhythm of daily life.
Kirito still led the Moonlit Black Cats during the day to train and earn Col on the 23rd and 24th floors, then went alone at night to the front-line labyrinth areas to hunt monsters—sometimes teaming up with Akimi or Klein and his group.
Originally, Kirito had felt a little guilty for leaving Klein behind to go solo, but his shyness kept him from apologizing.
Eventually, Akimi dragged him into talking it out, and now he could team up with Klein without any awkwardness.
As for Akimi and Asuna, they kept up the same mid-to-high-intensity clearing pace as before, maintaining levels noticeably higher than most front-line players.
Among all players, the highest level now belonged to Akimi at level 52, followed by Kirito, Asuna, and Heathcliff, all at level 51.
However, these peaceful days didn't last long.
Just a few days after Keita's birthday, on the night of May 16th, something changed.
"Hey! Kirito! Lure the monsters over here!" Klein shouted loudly, raising his katana.
Kirito didn't hesitate and rushed toward Klein's position.
Three massive wolf-like monsters were right on his heels, their bodies a dark red, with long black spines running down their backs.
Not far ahead, Akimi, Klein, and a lancer from Klein's guild, Fuurinkazan, stood ready with weapons in hand to intercept.
"Switch!"
At Kirito's call, the three each took position in front of one of the "Shadow Wolves" and began preparing sword skills.
They had already fought these three Shadow Wolves for two rounds, so now a single sword skill would be enough to finish off their remaining HP.
Klein and his guildmate executed their sword skills on time and killed their wolves.
But Akimi, inexplicably, froze for a moment—nearly letting the wolf bite his neck.
Fortunately, Asuna reacted quickly.
Without her intervention, the wolf's passive skill, "Vital Strike", might have actually one-shot him.
Normally, a player of Akimi's skill level would never make such a low-level mistake—and strangely enough, this was the third time tonight he had made the same kind of blunder in a row.
"Hey, hey! Akimi, what's up with you today? Your focus is way off," Klein complained, one hand on his hip.
Even at Klein's jab, Akimi still stared blankly for a second or two before responding.
Rubbing his forehead with a troubled look, he said, "I don't know either… I just zone out for no reason."
Asuna frowned in concern.
"How about we stop here for today? Go back and rest—we can continue tomorrow."
Kirito glanced at the time—11:42 p.m.
After pulling a healing potion from his quickbar and drinking it, he agreed.
"Yeah, if you're not in good condition, better to head back before something happens."
Akimi sighed lightly and nodded—his reaction speed really had been off all day.
Once Akimi and Asuna used their teleport crystals to return to town, Kirito and Klein exchanged a glance and continued hunting.
Back at the inn, Akimi said goodnight to Asuna, then stepped into his room and collapsed face-first onto the bed without another word.
Closing his eyes, feeling the current mess that was his brain, Akimi slowly furrowed his brows.
At the same time, in the real world outside of SAO, inside a ward at the University of Tokyo Hospital in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Akimi mother Tomioka Yoshiko, stood before a hospital bed, her face filled with deep anxiety.
Helplessly, she turned to the girl beside her—dressed in a white coat, wearing rimless glasses, her hair tied up with a butterfly hair clip, and her light-purple eyes calm—and asked,
"Kiyoshi, why did Akimi suddenly get such a high fever?"
The girl looked at the medical report in her hands on Akimi's condition, her willow-like brows gradually furrowing.
However, she said nothing more, only gently patted Yoshiko's hand and replied:
"Don't worry, Aunt Yoshiko. Akimi is fine. We'll just give him a fever-reducing injection, and he'll be fine after a night's rest."
Only then did Yoshiko withdraw her hand, but when her gaze fell on Akimi's face lying in the bed, she couldn't help showing a trace of worry.
Her eyes began to redden, mist gathering in them, and she choked up as she said,
"If… if I hadn't let Akimi play this game back then…"
The girl called Kiyoshi put an arm around Yoshiko's shoulders and softly comforted her,
"Akimi is so smart—he'll be fine. Aunt Yoshiko, it's already one in the morning. Please go rest. I'll watch over Akimi here."
"…Alright."
After gently caressing Akimi's face, Yoshiko lowered her head and left the ward.
"Sigh… What on earth is going on with Akimi…"
Looking at the test report, Tomioka Kiyoshi couldn't help but feel a headache coming on—according to the results, Akimi's physical condition wasn't bad at all.
In fact, it was surprisingly good, even better than most people today.
Even though he had been lying in a hospital bed for more than half a year, his muscles hadn't atrophied like other patients' and still maintained normal activity.
But starting this afternoon, he suddenly developed a high fever for no apparent reason.
Physical cooling had no effect, and now his temperature had already reached 40.2°C.
As Akimi's older cousin, Kiyoshi had been working at the University of Tokyo Hospital ever since graduating from the University of Tokyo in 2020, yet she had never seen such a strange case before—patients in much worse condition hadn't developed a fever, while Akimi, in perfect health, suddenly had one.
After giving Akimi a fever-reducing injection, Kiyoshi took out her phone and called one of the professors at the University of Tokyo, intending to ask if they had encountered anything similar.
Meanwhile, in Aincrad, Akimi lay tossing and turning in bed, unable to fall asleep…
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