Once they shared a look of recognition and put away their swords, Leafa rubbed the beast’s white hide. It seemed to her that the hair was also longer and softer than it had been before.
“At any rate, I’m glad you’re alive, Tonky,” Kirito murmured.
Yui popped her head out of his breast pocket and clapped happily. “I’m really glad! Good things do happen if you stick around long enough!”
“Let’s hope we stick around a little longer,” he muttered, looking up and down from his vantage point.
Clearly, Tonky would take them somewhere from this point. But if the destination happened to be the bottom of this massive hole smack in the middle of Jotunheim, that certainly didn’t make things any easier. Fortunately, after a brief whistle, Tonky instead headed for the impressive roots of the World Tree above.
With every rippling beat of its luxuriously furry wings, the massive Deviant God rose further up into the darkness of the cavern. It followed a gentle spiral trajectory until Leafa could see the entire vastness of Jotunheim below.
“Wow…”
She couldn’t contain the marvel that passed her lips at the cruel, beautiful land of ice and snow.
Player flight was impossible in the cave, so Leafa and Kirito had to be the first to ever witness it from such a height. She was about to pull an image-saving item out of her inventory when she then thought better of it and clasped her hands instead. She could save a screenshot of the image, but nothing could preserve the feeling in her heart at this moment. It was a complex mixture of sadness and delight, frustration and liberation.
Whether it had any inkling of what ran through Leafa’s heart or not, Tonky briefly dropped into a more leisurely spin before beating its wings mightily once more.
At first, Leafa’s mind couldn’t exactly process the sense of distance between herself and what she was seeing.
There was the icy-blue translucent cone that hung from the ceiling, as well as the net of black tubes that seemed to hold it into place—the roots of the tree.
Based on the distance blur, the gigantic icicle was at least two hundred yards tall. As they’d noticed from ground level, there were multiple floors visible within the structure, forming a dungeon of ice.
As she marveled silently at the incredible sight, Leafa suddenly noticed a golden light flashing at the very bottom of the icicle’s sharp tip. She squinted, but still couldn’t see it very well. Without thinking, she held up her right hand and chanted a quick spell.
A puddle of water vibrated in her palm, then crystallized into a flat piece of ice. Kirito peered over at her.
“What’s that?”
“An Ice Scope spell. See that thing shining at the tip of the giant icicle?”
She squished her face cheek to cheek with Kirito’s and held up the large lens. The golden light in the image wavered briefly before sharpening into focus.
“Whoa!” Leafa let out an extremely unladylike shriek when she recognized the source of that light.
Sealed into the tip of the icicle was a breathtakingly impressive longsword with a blade shining pure and gold. The sword’s phosphorescent glow and fine decorations made it clear that this was a legendary weapon. Not only that—Leafa knew the name of this sword already.
“It’s…the Holy Blade Excalibur. I saw a picture of it on the official ALO site…The only weapon greater than Eugene’s Demon Blade Gram. It’s the best sword in the game, and no one knew where to find it…until now.”
“The best sword…” Upon Leafa’s hoarse explanation, Kirito’s mouth watered, and he gulped, comprehending.
Just above the sealed sword was a spiral staircase carved directly into the ice, and this path seemed to lead directly inside the dungeon within the icicle. If they conquered that dungeon, they could gain the server’s ultimate weapon, a unique prize.
Tonky the Deviant God continued its spiral path around the side of the blue icicle, still rising steadily. Leafa finally tore her eyes away from the holy sword to see where they were heading, and noticed two things.
The first was a balcony extending out like a platform from around the middle of the icicle’s considerable height. Tonky’s trajectory would take them just by the edge, close enough that they could jump onto it if they wanted.
The other thing, far above it, was an individual root hanging from the ice-encrusted ceiling of Jotunheim, with a set of stairs clearly cut into it. The steps ran up to the ceiling and appeared to continue from there. It had to be an escape route up to the surface—to Alfheim.
The balcony on the side of the icicle dungeon and the staircase up to sunlight were not connected. If they jumped off now, they’d have a chance at the holy sword, but they’d likely lose their opportunity to escape the underground.
Kirito appeared to have reached the same conclusion. He looked back and forth between the balcony and the stairs. As the seconds ticked by, the balcony grew closer and closer. They only had twenty seconds left to decide…ten…
The two remained silent as Tonky slowly came level with the wide balcony. Leafa and Kirito flinched simultaneously, their VRMMO instincts screaming at them to jump.
But they did not, of course.
After sharing a look with Kirito, Leafa smiled apologetically and said, “We can come again later. With a bunch of friends next time.”
“Agreed. I’m guessing this has to be the toughest dungeon in Jotunheim, anyway. We probably couldn’t tackle it alone…”
“Oh, don’t sound so crestfallen!” she laughed. Tonky continued past the balcony and began rising again. Below them they could see the shadow of a dreadful Deviant God emerging from the square entrance cut into the wall of the icicle. It was similar in shape to the humanoid three-faced giant that had attacked Tonky on the surface, only this one looked even worse.
Most likely, the other Deviant Gods within the depths of the most dangerous dungeon in Jotunheim were other humanoids. Which meant that Tonky and the other freakish Deviant Gods were at war with the humanoids, and were designed to escort human players. Perhaps that was why the three-faced giant had been trying to kill Tonky—to keep it from growing its wings.
If they’d joined a Deviant God hunting party arranged for that explicit purpose, they’d never have had the idea to save the jellyphant from its attacker. It was because she and Kirito had fallen down here alone that they’d experienced this in-game event…this friendship.
As Leafa pondered on these ideas, Tonky reached closer and closer to the ceiling. The dangling root with the steps carved into it was clearly in sight now.
With a wheezing whistle, Tonky spead its wings to slow down. The massive creature came to a gentle hover and extended its long nose to grab on tightly to the tip of the root, just next to the staircase.
Leafa got to her feet, the slightly swaying steps right in front of her. She grabbed Kirito’s hand and stepped over to the bottom of the staircase.
As though recognizing the weight on his back vanishing, Tonky gently released its nose’s grip and began to descend, rotating slowly. But its trunk’s tip held in place for a while, and Leafa reached out one last time to grip it.
“We’ll come again, Tonky. Take care, won’t you? Don’t let the other ones push you around,” she whispered, then let go. Kirito touched the trunk next, and even Yui popped out of the safety of her pocket to squeeze a strand of Tonky’s thick hair with her tiny hand.
“We should talk again sometime, Mr. Tonky,” the pixie squeaked. The Deviant God ruffled a deep response and folded its wings. It dropped like a stone, growing smaller before their eyes.
With a final twinkle of feathers, the strange creature finally melted into the darkness of Jotunheim below. With its full-grown wings, it could fly to its heart’s content, free from the harassment of others. One day, if Leafa stood at the lip of that massive hole in the ground and called its name, she felt sure that it would offer them another ride.
She wiped away the wetness in the corners of her eyes and gave Kirito a big smile. ?
??C’mon, let’s go! I bet we’ll emerge in the middle of the Alne!” she chirped.
Kirito stretched his limbs. “All right, time for a final run, is it?…Though, hey, Leafa? Even after we return to the surface, let’s keep the holy sword a secret between us.”
“Oh, you just had to ruin this precious moment with that statement, didn’t you?” She jabbed the spriggan on the shoulder and started vigorously jogging up the spiral staircase, still hand in hand with him.
The trip down had taken less than three minutes through the giant earthworm’s digestive tract, but the hike back seemed much longer. Onward they climbed, their path lit by dimly glowing mushrooms. Leafa quickly gave up on counting the steps, and after ten long minutes, an actual beam of light was visible above.
They shared a look and started the final spurt. Jumping an extra step with each leap, Leafa popped out of the hole in the tree wall headfirst.
The sylph rocketed out onto a mossy stone terrace with such momentum that she flipped head over heels and landed butt first on the hard floor. After a brief squint, she hopped to her feet to take in the sight that lay before her.
It was the night view of a beautiful, stately, layered city.
Stone structures in the style of ancient ruins extended as far as the eye could see. The yellow bonfires, magical blue flames, and pinkish mineral lanterns twinkled and fluttered like stardust. Beneath the lights, a vast array of player silhouettes in every shape and size milled about: An equal ratio of all nine fairy races walked the streets.
After a long gaze at the glittering scene, Leafa looked upward. The shadows of branches and leaves were clearly visible against the deep blue of the night sky.
“…The World Tree…” she murmured, then turned to Kirito. “This is it. We’re in Alne, the center of Alfheim. The biggest city in the world.”
“Yeah…We finally made it,” he nodded. Yui popped her head out of his pocket, her face shining.
“Wow…! I’ve never seen so many people in one place before!”
Leafa could say the same. It had never occurred to her that so many players would have left their home territories to enjoy their own adventures.
The three sat for a time on the railing of the terrace, letting the bustle of the metropolis wash over them.
Eventually, they were awakened from their reverie by the heavy blast of a thick sound, something like a pipe organ. It was followed by a soft, feminine voice coming from the sky. The announcement was for the weekly round of maintenance that would shut off the server at four AM. Leafa had never heard this voice before— she’d never been online this late.
It’s been one long series of firsts for me, the past two days. She swung her legs forward.
“I suppose that’s it for today. Guess we should find an inn to log out,” she said to Kirito, who nodded in agreement.
“How long does the maintenance last?” he asked.
“Until three in the afternoon.”
“I see…”
He looked down briefly before tilting his head back to scan the sky. A vast distance above, the branches of the World Tree spread in all directions.
Kirito’s black eyes narrowed and his mouth twitched. Leafa suddenly remembered his reason for being in Alfheim to begin with.
He was going to meet someone at the top of the World Tree. Who could it be? If it wasn’t an NPC in a quest, then perhaps a staffer with the dev team, or…
But before she could come up with a better guess, Kirito was back to his usual expression. “C’mon, let’s find an inn. I’m strapped for cash, so we can’t pick a five-star hotel.”
“That’s what you get for showing off and giving Sakuya all your money. You should have kept enough for a room!” Leafa laughed, shaking off her previous curiosity. She looked down at Yui in her usual pocket perch. “You heard Papa. Is there a cheap inn around here?”
Oddly enough, the Navigation Pixie also seemed to be gazing up at the branches with an expression of intent, but she soon answered with a smile.
“Yes, I think there’s one just down that alley. A real slum!”
“Great, my favorite,” Leafa groaned, her face twitching. Kirito marched right off without a care, so she had to rush to catch up.
There was a stirring in her chest despite the exhaustion of staying up so late. Leafa took one last look up at the World Tree.
But of course, she couldn’t see anything among the branches sunken into the night sky.
6
In January 2025, Asuna Yuuki was held prisoner in more ways than one.
Her first cage hemmed her in with golden bars. It was a delicate and beautiful birdcage sized and outfitted for a human being, but nothing she did could break herself loose.
That was because the bars, though only a fraction of an inch thick, were not real metal, but virtual data made of ones and zeroes. If the system defined them as “unbreakable,” even the largest hammer in the world couldn’t put a scratch on their surface.
The second cage holding her prisoner was this entire virtual realm.
The world’s name was ALfheim Online, abbreviated as ALO. It was a massive multiplayer online role-playing game—or in other words, a VRMMO—run by a company called RCT Progress.
ALO itself functioned as a completely normal online game, with thousands of ordinary customers who paid a monthly fee for access to the entertainment within. But behind that facade lurked a massive illegal and inhumane experiment hatched by one man’s wicked hubris.
The basic engine that ran ALO was a replica of Sword Art Online, the game that shocked Japan to its core from 2022 to 2024.
Ten thousand players of all ages were trapped within SAO, and a full 40 percent perished as a result. The game’s developer, Argus, was completely obliterated by the damages caused, and maintenance of SAO’s servers during this time was left to the Full Dive Development Division of RCT, a massive electronics manufacturer. The man in charge of this project had not only spun off a copy of the SAO system for a subsidiary to develop and release to the public, he also succeeded in holding three hundred SAO players captive within the server, even after the game was beaten and everyone inside supposedly set free. These three hundred had their minds and souls held prisoner within the new ALO server.
This singular man intended to use those three hundred brains as test subjects for a new experiment: using the full-dive system to manipulate a person’s memory and emotions.
At the same time, he’d trapped Asuna directly within the world of ALO. She was given an avatar body and placed far out of reach of any player: inside a birdcage that hung from the branches of the massive World Tree, which stood at the center of the world of Alfheim. He plotted to keep her there until he was officially wed to the comatose Asuna in the real world, and had secured his position as the heir to Shouzou Yuuki, CEO of RCT. Two months after the end of the SAO Incident, he was on the doorstep of achieving both those goals.
The man’s name was Nobuyuki Sugou.
He was also known as Oberon, the fairy king who ruled over Alfheim.
Asuna had gone to great lengths to secretly acquire the keycode number needed to leave her golden prison. Currently, she proceeded carefully forward, the sinking red orb of the sun to her left.
The walkway carved into the frightfully thick branch of the World Tree was etched with intricate patterns in its floor and half wall, which, combined with the handrails crafted of fresh shoots, played up the sheer fantasy of the setting. The occasional glimpse of decorative objects such as small birds and rodents animating themselves told her she was most definitely inside a game.
Thinking there was an unlikely but undeniable possibility of monsters, she walked cautiously. For several minutes she went along the path, until, brushing a curtain of the tree’s leaves aside, she finally came to a gigantic wall that had to have been the trunk of the tree. A black hole gaped at the intersection of her branch and trunk like a giant knothole, and the path continued through it, into the tree. Asuna carefully approached the
entrance, subconsciously slowing until her footfalls were silent.
Up close, she could see that while the outer aperture was irregularly shaped, just like a natural tree, farther in there stood a clearly artificial rectangular door. There was no doorknob, only a touch-pad plate. She traced a finger on the surface, praying that it wasn’t locked.
The door slid open without a sound. She held her breath and peered inside to check that no one was there, then quickly darted inside.
It was a straight, off-white hallway that burrowed farther into the tree. The area was dim, with only the occasional orange light, spaced out mechanically along the walls. Unlike the beautiful, decorative exterior of the tree, this was a nearly blank environment, with only the barest effort involved in creating it.
It was as though the game world, without rhyme or reason, had suddenly turned into an office. The soles of her bare feet felt cold on the plain white floor. All of this told Asuna that she was finally reaching the enemy’s stronghold. She bit her lip.
Nobuyuki Sugou was a man possessed by a different kind of madness than Akihiko Kayaba.
Despite being a powerful employee within a large company, he was using his influence to hold three hundred minds captive as subjects for a dangerous experiment. It was not the act of a sane human being. Desire and greed without end were what drove him. His instincts told him that he could never have enough. Asuna had known him since childhood—she understood this better than anyone.
At the moment, Sugou was filled with a certain amount of satisfaction, knowing that he owned a part of Asuna, and soon, her entire being. But he would fly into an uncontrollable rage when he learned that she had outwitted him and escaped her cage. He would make her suffer as much humiliation as he could manage and use her in his inhumane research. Just the thought made her knees go weak.
But if she turned back to the birdcage now, Asuna would truly be surrendering to Sugou. If it were Kirito, there would be no standing still here. Even without his swords…