Chapter 337
It was as if a certain switch inside Silica was switched on, throwing one question after another about her idol toward Rozen, making it hard to believe that she was a 13 years old girl.
Rozen had no choice but to answer as reluctant as he might be to sate Silica’s curiosity.
Fortunately, Silica only asked about Rozen’s in-game information, not his real-life information.
Even before s...o...b..came a death game, asking about other Players’ real-life information was considered an intrusion in privacy, especially now that SAO has become a death game, it was considered taboo to ask other players’ personal information.
For example, if a Player happened to put their party members in danger because they were blinded by greed, and their party members happened to know that Player’s personal information.
It wasn’t impossible that they will resort to crime once they returned to the real world if it meant getting back at that Player.
Therefore, Players refrained from mentioning and asking each other’s personal information unless they were friends in real life.
Silica seemed to have taken this into account and refrained from asking her idol’s personal information, and Rozen was kind of grateful for this.
After all, a certain rapier user known as “The Flash” was not as lucky. Her fans were a bunch of boorish people who didn’t stop at asking her real-life information but also intrude on her privacy.
Silica indeed idolized Rozen, but she knew that overstepping her bounds would trouble her idol.
However, this was indeed the first time for Rozen to be idolized by someone.
Although he was hailed as the strongest Master in Chaldea and the Prodigy of Akabane Clan, he didn’t consider that as being idolized.
Therefore, seeing Silica asking various things concerning him with her curious and excited eyes put him in the spot because he never felt anything like this before.
In the end, Rozen answered all Silica’s questions for thirty minutes, and Silica seemed elated.
However, Rozen couldn’t let his guard down yet.
Now that Silica has asked various questions, there was one question that she was bound to ask, and that question was…
“By the way, Rozen-san.”
Silica couldn’t wait to ask this question.
“Do you mind telling me that person’s character’s name?”
That question was the most troublesome question for Rozen.
So far, only the Clearers in the frontline knew about Rozen’s character’s name, and no middle or low-level Player knew about his character’s name.
There were two reasons for that.
First, Rozen had no intention to gain fame, his actions spoke louder than words, and eventually, his name spread throughout Aincrad, but because Players didn’t know his character’s name, they called him “The Magician” out of convenience.
The second was because he wanted to avoid trouble.
For example, even if a Player wasn’t registered as a friend with Rozen, they could still send Instant Message to Rozen as long as they knew Rozen’s character’s name, and countless spam will flood his mailbox every day to the point that he couldn’t even sleep.
That was if all Rozen got was spam, what he also got threatening messages?
So, in order to prevent this from happening, Rozen deliberately talked this out with the Clearers.
“Surely, you guys won’t be pleased if our clearing progress was slowed or halted because of this, right?”
Using this sentence as a reason, Rozen asked the Clearers to refrain from revealing his character’s name.
And that was undoubtedly the correct move from Rozen because a certain rapier user is known as “The Flash” didn’t put this problem into account and carelessly told other Players her character’s name.
As a result, not only she received a lot of hara.s.sment messages, she also received a marriage proposal from time to time, and she has been regretting that mistake ever since.
That was exactly why Rozen’s character’s name was basically unknown to most Players. Even Kirito had a hunch.
This sort of thing would happen, thus refrain from telling anyone his character’s name. All people know was one of the top Player, Black Swordsman, but they didn’t know his character name.
That was how Rozen could casually go to lower Floors and even form a party with Silica. If his character’s name was known throughout SAO, he wouldn’t be able to form a party like this since they’ll be able to see his character name.
But Silica just happened to ask this question, and apparently, she realized that she might overstep her bound a little bit here.
“Please… please rest a.s.sured, I’m just curious about that person’s name, that’s all! I will not send that person any message, nor will I tell others about it!”
Silica immediately added because she realized Rozen seemed a little troubled by her question.
Rozen then reluctantly answered.
“That’s… what will you think if I say that his character’s name is Rozen…?”
“Geez, I told you I’m serious here, don’t tease me!”
Well, so was Rozen!
Rozen just sighed and replied with a smile.
“Alright, I will tell you later.”
Although Silica felt somewhat unsatisfied with Rozen’s answer, she also knew that revealing other Player’s character’s name might bring various inconveniences, so she stopped pestering Rozen about it.
“Well, as long as you remember.”
Silica then brushed off the dirt on her skirt and looked at Rozen.
“Should we go deeper? But if we do, there may be more Drunken Apes than before, even dealing with seven of them took all we had, any more and it may be dangerous.” Silica was implying that they should just hunt the monster nearby without delving deeper.
However, Rozen failed to comprehend Silica’s reasoning.
“It’s not like we won’t be in danger if we don’t go deeper, no?”
Rozen asked with a smile.
“Sometimes, players are scarier than monsters.”
Once again, Rozen’s words baffled Silica.
Suddenly…
“Kyru!”
Bina, who was lying on the ground, suddenly flew up and cried with a screeching voice while looking at a certain direction.
“Pi…Pina…?”
Silica was startled. Rozen, however, seemed pretty composed.
“It seems that we got company.”
Rozen then shifted his gaze toward the direction that Pina was focused on.
“Isn’t it about time you come out?”
Rozen’s voice reverberated throughout the whole forest.
It wasn’t until this moment that Silica finally noticed that there was something wrong and spontaneously grabbed Rozen’s hem.
Then…
“To think that I would be discovered. As expected of a member of the strongest guild.”
A figure slowly showed itself, followed by confident laughter from the direction that Rozen, Silica, and Pina were looking at.