The elbow in my ribs brought me back to my senses.
“Oh—sorry. I was spacing out.”
“No matter which world we’re in, when you get lost in thought, you really have no idea what’s going on.”
Asuna shook her head in exasperation, then unleashed a smile like a ray of sunlight and plopped her head against my shoulder.
With a most unladylike sound, I sucked the last remnants of the strawberry yogurt drink through my straw. We were seated against the west-facing cafeteria windows, at the third table in—at least, as measured by the adjoining southern wall. Keiko Ayano, who was sitting across from me, looked peeved.
“Can’t you drink that any quieter, Liz—I mean, Rika?”
“Well, how else am I supposed to—oh geez, can you believe how close Kirito’s sitting to her?”
A boy and girl were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the bench down in the courtyard, which was only visible through the tree branches from this exact table.
“Shameless. Right in the middle of school…”
“A-and you don’t think it’s rude to spy on them?!”
I gave Keiko a glance and remarked, “Remind me again who was just watching them very intently a moment ago, Silica?”
Silica the dagger wielder, also known as Keiko (or should that be the other way around?), went bright red and shoveled her shrimp pilaf into her mouth to avoid having to respond to that.
I crushed the empty drink pack and tossed it into the trash can several feet away, then rested my chin on my hands, sighing dramatically.
“Sheesh…If I’d known this would happen, I wouldn’t have agreed to that one-month cease-fire.”
“That was your idea, Liz! You said we should give them a month to enjoy their company…You should have known this would be the result.”
“You have rice on your cheek.”
I sighed again and stared up through the skylight at the clouds passing overhead.
Kirito had sent me an e-mail out of the blue in mid-February. I don’t know how he got my address.
At first I was shocked, but then I heard the bell inside my head ring, signaling the start of round two. I headed to his meet-up spot, where he told me something even more shocking.
He’d gotten himself wrapped up in that shocking ALO Incident. And not only that, Asuna was a victim of it as well, though that was a secret from the public.
Asuna wanted to see me, so naturally, I rushed to visit her. When I saw how tender and fragile she looked, like a pale snow fairy, I felt that familiar urge to protect her that I’d experienced so many times in Aincrad.
Fortunately, she was getting better by day, and was able to start school along with the rest of us. Even once we were standing side by side again, I couldn’t force myself to see her as a rival. She was still more of a little sister who needed my help, so another friend of mine who was in love with Kirito decided to form an alliance with me—the alliance to let them be lovebirds until the end of May. And yet…
I sighed for a third time and popped the last bite of BLT into my mouth, then looked to Silica. “Gonna go to the IRL meet-up?”
“Of course I am. Lea—Suguha is coming, too. I can’t wait; I’ve never met her in person before.”
“You’ve got quite a nice relationship with Leafa,” I smirked at her. “Must be because you have so much in common, both being little-sister figures.”
“Grr…”
She grimaced, chowed down the last of her pilaf, and returned the smirk.
“Well, Liz, I guess that makes you the older sister now.”
Our glares sent sparks flying. A few moments later, we both looked up at the clouds and sighed together.
The ugly black door of Agil’s Dicey Café was adorned with an ugly sign that said RESERVED in ugly handwriting.
I turned to Suguha and asked, “Have you ever met Agil, Sugu?”
“Yeah, we hunted together twice, I think. He was real big.”
“He’s just like that in real life, too, so get ready.”
Suguha’s eyes went wide. Beside her, Asuna giggled.
“I certainly was surprised the first time I visited.”
“Me, too. I was freaked out.”
I bopped Suguha’s frightened head and gave her a grin before pushing the door open. The bell clanged briefly, but was drowned out by a sudden cheer of applause and whistling.
The small interior was already packed with people. The speakers were blaring some in-game BGM—surprisingly enough, the Algade theme song played by the NPC musicians in Aincrad—and glasses full of drinks shone in every hand. The party was well under way.
“What gives? We didn’t show up late!” I protested, stunned. Lisbeth sidled up in her school uniform.
“Heh, the star of the show always has to be the last to arrive. We just told you it started at a later time than everyone else. C’mon in!”
She pulled the three of us inside and shoved us onto the little stage at the back of the café. The door slammed shut, the music died out, and the lights turned up.
Suddenly I was washed in the spotlight, and beyond the glare I heard Lisbeth say, “All right everyone, are we ready? One, two, three!”
“Congrats on beating SAO, Kirito!!” the entire room chanted. Party crackers popped. There was applause.
Picture flashes went off right in my dumbfounded face.
Today’s offline meet-up, the “Aincrad Conquest Celebration,” had been originally planned by me, Liz and Agil, but at some point the reins had been seized by everyone else but me. There was at least double the number of people inside the building as I’d expected.
After a toast, we had a round of introductions, followed by a speech from me—not planned or prepared for—and a number of Agil’s massive homemade pizzas. The party was in complete chaos at this point.
The ways I was congratulated individually were varied—raucous and hearty from the men, a little too intimate from the women, and by the time I got to one of the stools at the bar counter, I was exhausted.
“Bourbon on the rocks, boss,” I ordered glibly. The large man in the white shirt and black necktie gave me an appraising look. A few moments later, to my surprise, a tumbler came sliding over with ice cubes and an amber liquid inside.
I took a tiny, hesitant sip to find that it was nothing more than oolong tea. I sneered back at the bartender, who was very pleased with himself. Meanwhile, a tall, skinny fellow plopped onto the stool next to me. He was dressed in a suit with an ugly tie, and stunningly enough, an even uglier bandanna.
“The real thing for me, Agil.”
It was Klein, the katana warrior. Glass in hand, he swiveled around on the stool to cast a leering glance at a group of women chattering happily across the room.
“Really, drinks in the afternoon? Aren’t you going to work after this?”
“Bah. Who can stomach overtime without a drink or two in ’em? Besides…hot damn…”
He continued staring goonishly at the girls. I rolled my eyes and tossed back a mouthful of iced tea.
I had to admit, it was a pretty nice sight. Asuna, Lisbeth, Silica, Sasha, Yuriel, and Suguha, together at once—it made me want to take a picture. As a matter of fact, the entire thing was being videotaped…for Yui’s sake.
Another man took the other adjacent stool. He was in a suit himself, but unlike Klein, he looked the part of a proper businessman. This was Thinker, the former commander of the Army.
I raised my glass and said to him, “I hear you tied the knot with Yuriel? A bit belated, but—congrats.” We clinked glasses, and he laughed shyly.
“Well, I’ve just been trying my hardest to get used to real life again. Work’s finally on the right track, too…”
Klein raised his drink as well and leaned in. “Seriously, cheers! I shoulda found someone for myself while I was there. By the way, I’ve been checking out the new MMO today.”
Thinker smiled shyly again. “Aw, geez. We barely have anything up on the site yet…Besides, s
trategy data and MMO news are quickly becoming obsolete.”
“The birth of a new universe is a time of chaos,” I nodded, then looked at the bartender, who was rattling a shaker. “How’s The Seed been since then, Agil?”
The bald man put on a toothy smile that would make a small child cry and chortled, “It’s incredible. We’ve got about fifty mirrors up, downloads in six figures now, and nearly three hundred functioning servers running.”
Akihiko Kayaba’s thought-simulation program had left me the “seed of a world.”
A few days after meeting with his former assistant, I had Yui transfer the massive file from my NerveGear’s local storage to a memory chip, and brought it to Agil’s bar. He was the only person I knew with the skills to help that seed take root.
Naturally, there was hatred within me for Kayaba and his floating castle world. His game of death killed several people I thought of as friends. It was for their sake, for the memory of their terror, as well as my girlfriend, that I could never forgive Kayaba for what he did.
But unfortunately, I couldn’t deny that somewhere within that great loathing, there was an ounce of empathy for him. With true life and death, he had created another reality. I was desperate to escape that world, but I also loved it. Somewhere deep within my heart, a part of me was constantly hoping for it to continue.
After much hard thought, I came to a conclusion: I wanted to see what would grow from this “seed.”
The seed of a world.
It was a program package designed by Kayaba, officially titled “The Seed,” that contained everything necessary for a full-sensory VR full-dive system.
Not only had he downsized the Cardinal system—which controlled and managed the SAO server—into a compact size that even a small server could run, he’d even packed in the development suite necessary for all the software game components.
In other words, anyone who wanted to create their own VR world, as long as they had a server with a good enough connection, could download the package, design 3D objects or utilize others’ creations, and run the program to create their own world.
Developing a program that managed the input and output for all five senses was incredibly difficult. In essence, every VR game in the entire world was based on some form of Kayaba’s Cardinal system, at incredible licensing cost.
With the end of Argus, control of the program transferred to RCT, and with the end of RCT Progress, a new buyer was needed. But the cost of the software and the social stigma of the VR genre were enough to drive off any company rich enough to afford it. To most observers, the genre was bound to die off.
Into that void stepped The Seed, a compact VR control system that was entirely rights free. I gave the program to Agil, who used his connections to analyze the program thoroughly and determine that it did not pose any harm.
Whether Kayaba’s intended it to be harmless or not, ultimately no one other than its creator could foresee what might happen if this software was unleashed upon the world. Yet I couldn’t help but feel that a very simple emotion was at the heart of his plan.
The desire to see a true “other world.”
At my request, Agil uploaded The Seed to servers all over the world, so that anyone, individual or company, could access it.
Ultimately, ALfheim Online was saved from an untimely demise by a number of venture capitalists who were also ALO players. They banded together to form a new company, and managed to acquire all of the ALO data from RCT at a rock-bottom price.
Alfheim’s vast continent was brought back to life within a new crucible with all player data intact. Apparently, not even 10 percent of the player base had given up the game for good after the incident.
Of course, Alfheim was not the only world brought to life. From companies without the funds to afford the astronomical licensing fee down to single individuals, hundreds of new developers appeared, running their own VR game servers. Some charged fees and some didn’t. These games gradually found themselves aligning and connecting to one another, leading to the formation of some meta-rules widely accepted across the spectrum. There was even a common agreement that a character created in one VR game should be easily convertible across all game worlds.
The Seed’s functionality didn’t stop merely at games. Education, communication, tourism—servers offering new experiences popped up by the day, giving birth to an ever-greater variety of worlds. The day was coming soon when the total size of combined VR worlds eclipsed the land area of Japan itself.
Thinker smiled and spoke with dreamy eyes.
“I honestly think we’re witnessing the birth of a new world. The term MMORPG is too narrow to describe it. I actually want to come up with a new name for my website…but nothing good comes to mind.”
“Hmmm,” Klein murmured, crossing his arms and furrowing his brow in thought. I jabbed his elbow and laughed.
“Come on, nobody’s looking for suggestions from a guy who’d name his guild Furinkazan!”
“What? We’re fast as the wind, still as the forest, fierce as fire, and immovable as the mountain! People are lining up for days to join the new Furinkazan!”
“Good for you. Hopefully you can recruit some cute girls.”
“Ugh…”
Klein had no response to that. I laughed again and turned back to Agil. “There are no changes to the after-party plan, right?”
“Correct. We’re meeting up at Yggdrasil City at eleven tonight.”
“And,” I lowered my voice, “is it going to work?”
“You bet. Took an entire new cloud of servers, but that’s the legendary castle for ya. We’ve got more and more players signed up, and the funds are pouring in.”
“Well, let’s cross our fingers.”
The former SAO server was reformatted and scrapped entirely. But among the former Argus materials the new ALO admins bought was something completely unexpected.
I drained my glass of tea and held it in both hands, looking at the ceiling of the bar. The black panels looked like night sky to me. Gray clouds floated past. Next the moon appeared, casting its blue glow on the world. Beyond that was a gigantic—
“Hey, Kirito! Over here!” Lisbeth bellowed, fully drunk now. She waved me over dramatically.
“I hope she’s not too hammered,” I said, eyeing the large pitcher full of pink liquid in her hands. The outlaw bartender played it cool.
“Don’t worry, it’s only one percent alcohol. Besides, tomorrow’s the weekend.”
“Oh, come on…”
I stood up, shaking my head. It was going to be a long evening.
Leafa flew through the pitch-black night.
Her two pairs of wings beat against the air, propelling her onward, faster and faster. The wind screamed in her ears.
Before, she’d had to master the art of gliding to conserve her limited wing power, finding just the right combination of cruising speed and swooping trajectory. But that was all in the past now. There were no more shackles imposed upon her by the system.
There was no city on top of the World Tree after all. The alfs, fairies of light, did not exist. The King of the Fairies, who was said to transform anyone who could reach him, was a false tyrant.
But now that the land had fallen into ruin and been brought back by a new ruler—or managers—every fairy in the game was given eternal wings. She was still a green wind sylph, not an alf, but Leafa was happy as she was.
She logged in a full hour before the time of the meeting and left the cait sith stronghold of Freelia, which had been her home base recently. She’d been flying for twenty minutes straight, not resting for a second but buzzing her wings at full power, indulging her impulses. Despite such a long flight at top speed, her grass-green propellers never lost an ounce of power. They stayed faithful to Leafa’s commands through thick and thin.
Kirito had described the acceleration theory under the new order of Alfheim as an automobile. Just after leaving the ground, you had to spread your wings as wide as possible “
for the purposes of torque”—Kirito’s words, whatever that meant—and catch as much air as you could in each beat.
Once the speed was up to a good level, the wings should be bent at a tight angle and beat quick and short. Once at maximum speed, you could fold the wings into a straight line, vibrating them so fast they were virtually invisible. From the ground, a player at that speed was nothing but a colorful comet. At that point, there was very little that could be done to increase speed; it depended entirely on the flyer’s will and guts. Most would slow down from either instinctual fear or mental exhaustion.
Last week they’d held a race across Alfheim, which was highlighted by a dead heat between Leafa and Kirito that she won by a hair at the very end. They demolished the competition so badly that the prospect of a second race was unlikely at this point.
That was so much fun…
Leafa chuckled to herself as she flew. Kirito trailed her as they approached the goal line, and he’d tried the underhanded tactic of telling stupid jokes in an attempt to make her laugh and lose concentration. It had worked like gangbusters. If she hadn’t hit him perfectly with the antidote potion in her pouch, he might well have overtaken her.
Racing like that was fun, but there was nothing like letting her mind empty as she sped away toward the horizon on her own.
Her long flight had brought her very close to the maximum speed. The dark land below was only a striped blur to her eyes, and any lights from the small towns she saw ahead were behind her in moments.
Just when she physically felt like she was going faster than she’d ever flown before, Leafa spread her wings and twisted into a steep climb.
A full moon was shining through a crack in the thick clouds above. She rose like a rocket, heading straight for the pale disc. A few seconds later, she plunged into the clouds, noting a slight difference in the sound in her ears. She pierced the black veil like a bullet. A bolt of lightning flashed very close by, illuminating the clouds around her, but she did not stop.
Finally she broke through. The entire world was lit by pale blue moonlight—the surface below was an unbroken field of white clouds. The only other object in sight was the top of the World Tree in the distance, towering over the cloud layer. Her speed was indeed dropping by now, but Leafa only tensed her lips and straightened out her fingers, reaching for that moon. It seemed to her that the silver platter was getting larger and larger. She could make out the individual craters.