"The system cannot find you."
After saying this, Kirito glanced at the weapon shop door. Two players who had just entered the city were crowding at the entrance comparing prices; if he asked another question, they might hear him.
Lin Yuan sheathed the short sword at his waist. "Go outside."
They passed through Urbus one after the other. Kirito didn't invite him to team up, Lin Yuan didn't wait either. Only when the city wall blocked the voices behind them did the two stop on a sheltered rocky slope.
This was already in the wild. Sparse grass grew among the pebbles, and in the distance, a unicorn pawed at the ground. Kirito looked around and chose a rock with a wide view to stand on.
"Do you know how the trading partners are determined?" he asked.
"Have no idea."
"There needs to be at least one character that the system can recognize. Even if the name is hidden, applying shouldn't result in nothing happening." Kirito paused. "You don't have a marker above your head, and the Boss didn't give you any rewards. What exactly did you do?"
"Nothing was done."
Kirito frowned slightly. If this answer had been given in the shop, he would have thought Lin Yuan was being evasive; but along the way, Lin Yuan hadn't even opened a map to find the city gate. It wasn't that he was deliberately avoiding those steps; it was more like he simply didn't know how to do it.
"You try it first." Kirito raised his right hand, his fingertips pointing downwards. "Open the menu."
Lin Yuan followed the movements twice. All he could see was sand being blown by the wind.
"It's not a matter of gestures," he said.
"I know." Kirito opened his menu, and a semi-transparent window immediately appeared between the two of them. Lin Yuan could see a faint light, but Kirito noticed that the other's gaze did not follow the options.
Can you read the words on it?
"I can't see clearly."
Kirito closed the window and remained silent for a moment. "You were in the Town of Beginnings the day Kayaba announced the rules, right?"
"Exist."
"He sent all the players to the plaza. You went too?"
"No. I was on the street, and I only found out what happened later."
Kirito removed his fingers from the sword hilt. A menu that couldn't be accessed once, even if someone wasn't teleported, could be considered a system glitch; but if it's been like this since the server opened, it's no ordinary bug.
The unicorn not far away raised its head and took a few steps toward the two. Just as Kirito was about to warn them, Lin Yuan had already stepped forward. The short sword did not glow; he turned the tip of its horn to the side, and the blade slashed in close to its neck. The unicorn's body turned into shattered light, and the grassland returned to its open state.
Kirito's gaze first fell on the back of Lin Yuan's hand. There was a small scratch there from the coarse animal hair, and red blood was slowly seeping out. Looking around, he didn't see the familiar kill notifications appear in front of Lin Yuan.
You're injured.
"Just a scratch." Lin Yuan shook his hand.
Where's your health bar?
I don't have that.
Kirito looked at the wound. "Can it be healed with medicine?"
"The hemostatic stuff works. I tried the medicine you were taking once, but it didn't make any difference."
This answer sent a chill down Kirito's spine. When a player is injured, their stats decrease, but Lin Yuan's blood was flowing like in real life. If the horn of a unicorn pierced his body, he probably wouldn't have waited for his health bar to slowly reach zero.
"Are you an NPC?" Kirito asked, then immediately realized something was off.
The shopkeepers in the city wouldn't venture out into the wild to test monsters, much less show such a nonchalant expression over a minor injury. Lin Yuan saved Diabel last night, declined the invitation to a strategy guide, remembered what others had said, and would also look for a sword for himself.
Lin Yuan wiped the blood away with the corner of his clothes. "No."
"Hidden character? Tester?"
"No, not at all."
Kirito finally stopped guessing. He looked at Yamashiro, as if trying to confirm that the two of them were still in the same world.
"Then where did you come from?"
Lin Yuan gazed at the distant sky beyond the city. On the first day, he fell into the street from the broken gray-white light. His magic was still in his body, but he couldn't release even a spark-like fragment of space. The swords, stones, wind, and pain here were all too real; yet, the door that all players possessed never appeared for him.
He originally didn't intend to tell anyone. However, Kirito had witnessed enough, and fabricating a closed beta tester identity would only make every subsequent statement a lie.
"My name is Lin Yuan," he said. "This wasn't the name I entered when I logged in."
Kirito didn't urge him.
"Where I live is True Magic, and there's also a guild that's always noisy. Before coming here, my companions and I were dealing with a moving castle. A crack appeared in the castle, and I was sucked in. When I woke up, I was in the Town of Beginnings."
Kirito opened his mouth, and after a long pause, he said, "You mean, your reality isn't in Japan?"
"Not in your world."
The wind swept across the rocky slope, carrying away the last trace of the stench of blood.
Kirito finally understood why he could never find a player setting that could explain Lin Yuan.
So you don't have a logout button.
"Never," Lin Yuan looked at him, "Because I've never logged in."