That man’s name is Sugou Nobuyuki. His other name is the ruler of Alfheim, «Fairy King Oberon».
Using the hard won passcode, Asuna opened the cage and stepped onto the path leading from the golden birdcage. She glanced at the sun which was setting over the horizon while she slowly crept forward.
Engraved with the ring pattern of a tree, the branches of the «World Tree» formed a long and wide path. Smaller branches that acted as railings gave it an organic feel. In addition to the branches, there were also little birds and small animals which occasionally showed themselves, adding to the illusion that this was «inside of the game».
Fearing that monsters would appear, Asuna cautiously moved forward. After a few minutes of walking, a huge wall, the main trunk of the World Tree, came into view on the other side of a curtain of leaves. A black, gaping hole appeared where branch and trunk met, leading into the interior of the World Tree. Unconsiously dampening her footsteps, Asuna warily approached the hole.
When she arrived in front of the oval hole which mimicked a natural tree knot, she saw an unmistakably artificial rectangular door. The only difference was that this door had no handle but beside it was a touch panel. Praying with all her heart that it wasn’t locked, Asuna touched it with her fingertips.
Soundlessly, the door slid open to the right. After checking for signs of life, she hurried in.
The pathway she found inside was off-white and led straight into the depths of the tree. Dim light reflected off of the inorganic walls from orange lights periodically set in the ceiling. Unlike the corridors of trees that showed a stunning beauty outside, here it seemed like nobody had taken the trouble to place objects, leaving it completely undecorated.
It was as if someone had suddenly switched the game world with an office or library. From the white floors, cold air flowed over her bare feet, sending a chill through her entire body. It was as though she was being forced to realize she was infiltrating enemy headquarters. Asuna bit her lips and continued.
Unlike Kayaba Akihiko, Sugou Nobuyuki had a different sort of insanity.
Sugou, who was an employee of RECTO, used his position to orchestrate the imprisonment of 300 players from SAO and started dangerous human experiments with their brains. He was not just crazy but almost greed personified. No matter how much he already had, his bottomless hunger made him move to get more. Asuna who grew up near him understood this point about him better than anyone.
Right now Sugou had control over a portion of Asuna and found it very pleasurable to know he would have it all before long. If he knew that Asuna had escaped from the cage, his rage would have no limits. He would visit every possible humiliation upon her before using her as a subject in his experiments. Just thinking about that made Asuna’s knees start to wobble.
But if she turned back now, if she returned to the cage, she would have surrendered to Sugou. If it was Kirito he would never give up, even if he didn’t have a sword.
Asuna straightened her back, and looked at the passage. Somehow, she managed to take a step with feet that seemed to be made of lead. Once she took that first step, she didn’t stop again.
The passage seemed to be endless. The wall panels at top, bottom, left, or right had no seams or marks. It became increasingly difficult to tell if she was moving at all. Following the occasional orange light from the ceiling, Asuna single-mindedly continued forward. When she finally saw another door in front, she involuntarily sighed in relief.
This door was identical to the door from before. Again, she carefully touched the panel with her fingertips. The door slid open soundlessly.
Behind it was the same passage, this time it continued left and right. Feeling depressed, Asuna walked past the door. The surprising thing was, after a few seconds the door automatically closed, but it had melted into the wall, blending seamlessly. Asuna frantically touched the door here and there, but it didn’t re-open.
Asuna’s shoulders slumped and she decided to forget about the door. She had no plans to go back anyway. She lifted her head and looked to her right and left.
What had been a straight path now seemed to curve in a gentle arc. Thinking for a second, she started walking to the right. With faint footsteps, she earnestly continued forward. She started doubting herself ‘Have I been walking in circles all this time’. While Asuna was thinking that - something other than a wall finally appeared.
On the inside light-grey wall of the curve, there was something like a poster. After rushing over to it, it turned out to be a guide map. Asuna stared at the map, trying to imprint it in her memory.
At the top of the rectangular map «Complete Laboratory Map: Floor C» was written in a nondescript font. Under that was a simple illustration. There were three circular floors, and she was currently in an outer passage of the top one.
There was only the round passage on this floor. The straight passage that led to the bird cage was not displayed. However, on the lower floors, A and B there were various rooms labeled on the inner area, like «Data Reading Room», «Main Monitor Room», «Sleep Room» and others.
Movement between floors seemed to be performed by an elevator shown at the top of this floor’s circular passage. One vertical line connected all three floors and continued a long way to connect to something down below.
Following the elevator line, at the bottom is a large rectangular room. A chill ran down her back when she read the label next to that room: «Experimental Body Storage Facility».
“Experimental Body…”
Those words left a bitter aftertaste in Asuna’s mouth.
It seemed certain that this was Sugou’s illegal research facility. Indeed, if all of the testing was done in the virtual world, then it would have been easy to hide. If it looked like they would be exposed, with a touch of a fingertip, all evidence would disappear, leaving not a single piece of paper.
If the purpose of the circular facilities and that room were considered, one phrase would give it away, «Experimental Body». This is where Sugou was keeping the players he had abducted from SAO. Their consciousness was kept locked up in the storage facility shown on the guide.
Asuna thought about it for a moment then turned and continued walking down the curved passage. After walking for a few minutes at a brisk pace, a slide door with no decoration appeared on the left hand side of the passage. Next to the door a small inverted triangle stuck out from the wall.
Asuna took a deep breath and pushed the button with her finger. The door slid open immediately, opening into a small rectangular room. Asuna went inside, turned around and saw a control panel, very similar to those in reality.
After a moment of hesitation, Asuna picked and pushed the bottom button of the four lined up. The door closed and surprisingly her body was wrapped in a sense of falling. The box that Asuna rode descended silently down the inside of the virtual tree, stopping with a virtual sense of slowdown after a few seconds. A vertical slit appeared, where moments before was a solid white door, and the door opened with the sides sliding to the left and right.
Asuna stepped out of the door with light footsteps.
What appeared before her eyes was the same bland passage as on the floor above, going in a straight line. After making sure that there were no signs of life, Asuna started walking.
Oberon had given Asuna only a thin, simple, one piece dress that she didn’t approve of, but being barefoot in this situation was not a bad thing. If she had been wearing shoes, sound effects would have inevitably occurred. When in SAO, to make sure that monsters did not notice her so she could do back attack or ambush, she often went barefoot, accepting the drop in defense.
Other than actual combat, with Aincrad’s ruins region as a stage, Kirito, Cline, Lizbet and Asuna played a «Surprise Attack Game» many times. For Asuna who usually had light equipment that didn’t make any noise, she was constantly in the top ranks. But whenever she tried to back attack Kirito it never worked, not even once, so once she tried to sneak up on him without shoes on and
just as she was about to hit him on the head with a wooden sword, he took notice and dodged, after he avoided her attack Kirito had grabbed her leg and started tickling her non-stop. She started laughing so hard that she thought she would die.
Instead of the now uncertain real world, she wished she could have gone back to that time - That idea could not help but start to form in her mind with tears forming in her eyes. Asuna shook her head to brush aside the sad feeling.
Kirito was waiting for her in the real world. The only place she wanted to be was in Kirito’s arms. For that reason all she can do was move forward.
The passage wasn’t that long. While walking, a plain door came into view.
If it was locked, she would have to return to the previous floor to look for the control system. While thinking that she arrived in front of the door, contrary to her thoughts the door silently opened to the left and right. Inside there was a strong light, she instinctively squinted her eyes.
“…?!”
As soon as she looked into the room, Asuna gasped.
It was an incredibly vast space.
You could even say the pure white room was about the same size as a huge event hall. The distance could not be felt due to how large it was and there was a lack of detail. The ceiling shone a with a white light, same as the white floor - which had many neatly arranged short pillar-like things.
Making sure that nothing in sight was moving, Asuna stepped into the room and carefully moved forward.
From Asuna’s view, those pillar-like objects were arranged in rows of 18 pillars. If that space was square, there would be approximately 300 of them. Fighting back her fear, Asuna moved toward one of them.
Reaching up to Asuna’s chest they were wide enough around that it would probably take both arms to reach around them. The surface of it was smooth, though there were gaps in which something floated. That, however you looked at it - was a human brain.
Although it was the correct size, the color wasn’t real. It is made of a semi-transparent blue-violet material. The object was incredibly detailed, instead of a holographic display, it looked like sapphire sculpture.
Looking closely, she noticed that lights periodically appeared and scattered throughout the model, as they disappear there was a pow of colorful firework spread. It looked like a bundle of ultra-compact fireworks.
Frowning, Asuna observed from the side, she noticed that the light moving at a part of the network suddenly became stronger. The ending spark that used to be yellow became red and flashed brighter, then the sequence repeated. At the bottom of the brain-like object was a transparent chart that recorded the peak activity. Watching the log for the next minute, various numbers and symbols were displayed, along with words like pain and terror.
…It’s suffering.
Asuna realized intuitively.
The brain was being tormented, by incredible pain, sorrow and fear. The sparks were like screams coming from the brain. In front of Asuna’s eyes surfaced the face belonging to the owner of the brain. That face was distorted to the limit, mouth open in scream after soundless scream.
Unable to bear her imagination, Asuna backed up a few steps. In her head she saw the map above, «Experimental Body Storage Facility», and heard Oberon’s words «Techniques to Manipulate Emotions» in a flashback. The scene before her finally put the pieces of the puzzle together, and a certain picture appeared.
That meant the hundreds of brains here were not computer-generated virtual objects, but real-time monitoring of former SAO players. When the game was completed these people should have been freed, instead they were locked up by Sugou to be used in his devil’s research into thought, emotion and memory.
“This… this is too horrible…”
Asuna covered her mouth with both hands while whispering deep in her throat.
The research being done, along with human cloning experiments was absolutely taboo, something humans should never touch. It was not just absolutely criminal. It was like trampling on a person’s thought and soul, the last dignity of that person was being destroyed.
Asuna turned painfully to the right. Two meters away there was the same container, above it also floated a transparent blue brain. It had the exact same attention to detail, but the lights flickering in «somebody»’s brain were much slower. The color running through it was a yellow shading to red, and it looked almost like a cloudy liquid.
On the other side… and beyond that, were a seemingly infinite number of brains, all dyed in different colors, and all probably crying in despair.
Suppressing her panic, Asuna wiped away tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
It was not allowed. No, I would never forgive him. She and Kirito had bet their lives in battle, and the results were being used by Sugou for his experiments, that point could never be forgiven. His evil deeds would be exposed, there was no punishment good enough for that man.
“Wait for me… I will save you soon…”
After saying that, Asuna gently touched the container holding the tortured brain. Then she lifted her head, and walking between the pillars headed toward the back of the room.
After walking past ten columns, she suddenly heard a human voice. Asuna quickly flattened herself behind the nearest container. Carefully glancing around, she searched for the source of the voice. The voice seemed to coming from far to her right. Almost crawling, she advanced in the direction of the sound.
After reaching the back of one of the columns, she saw something strange ahead.
“…!?”
Panicking, she pulled back in a hurry. After blinking a few times she fearfully looked once again.
The now gone 61st floor of Aincrad, was also known as «Insect Land». As its name suggested, it was a floor full of bug monsters. For the majority of women, including Asuna that place was the equivalent to hell. One of the worst was a giant slug monster called «Blue Slug». With slimy grey skin and black spots, they had three pairs of large and small eyestalks, and tentacles protruding from their mouth for attack, they were truly a nightmare -.
Now, a few meters away from Asuna, there were two creatures with their backs turned to her who were deep in conversation. Those creatures were infinitely close to the Blue Slugs.
Those huge slug-like monsters seemed to be exchanging ideas while watching a single brain. The slug on the right shook its eyes and spoke in a squeaky voice.
“Oh, this guy is dreaming about Spica-chan again. B13 and B14 fields are off the charts. B16 is high too… he is really excited.”
The slug to the left answered while using a tentacle to poke at the holo-window near the brain.
“Isn’t it a coincidence? This is still the third experiment, right?”
“Well, this formation is the result of an induced-emotion circuit. I inserted the Spica-chan image into his memory, this display exceeds the threshold frequency.”
“Ok, we will continue monitoring the sample…”
Disgusted at the two slugs’ annoying high-pitched voices, she withdrew behind the pillar again.
They are Sugou’s subordinates, engaged in this inhuman experiment though it is uncertain why they have that appearance. From their words, she could feel they had no moral hesitation.
Asuna clenched her right hand tightly. If she had a sword in her hand right then… she would definitely give them the death appropriate to their appearance.
Quelling the impulse to do what her anger demanded, Asuna slowly backed away and after getting a certain distance from the slugs, continued toward the depths of the room.
Carefully moving ahead at full speed she continued to walk past columns of cylinders and finally arrived at the deepest parts of the room. At the end of the room— in front of the white walls, Asuna found a floating black cube.
This made Asuna think of the time when she was at Aincard’s underground maze’s control system. If she could access it with administrator privileges, it would be possible to log out of this crazy world.
But from
that point on, there was not a single place to hide. Asuna took a deep breath, and jumped out from behind the cylinder with grim determination.
Running toward the console as silently as possible. The ten meters seemed to be incredibly far away.
Every step she took, she tasted the feeling of fear that someone might shout to stop her coming from behind, but she continued moving her legs, and at last, she arrived at the console. At that point she turned around, and looked beyond the cylinders. With their antenne shaking, the slugs still seemed to be in the middle of an argument.
Asuna turned again to the black console. The slant cut top was dark and silent, on the right side there was a thin slit which remained plugged with a silver key card. Praying to herself, Asuna reached out, and grasping the card, slid it down.
A Poon sound effect rang out and Asuna ducked her head. To the left of the card slot, a light blue window and holo-keyboard appeared.
There were many, close packed menus in the window. Asuna crushed her inner anxiety, and carefully read the small English font. At the bottom left was the button labeled [Transport], Asuna used trembling fingers to push this button. With Bun sound, a new window appeared. On it there was a map that displayed the entirely laboratory. It seemed that it was possible to jump directly to anywhere in the laboratory using that system. But she had no use for that now. Desperately searching, Asuna found a small button shinning on the right hand side labeled [Exit Virtual Lab]. “This is it…!” With a small cry, Asuna touched it. Above it another window appeared. On the rectangular window there appear the words [Execute log-off sequence?] followed by ‘OK’ and ‘CANCEL’ buttons.
God—
With her heart desperately praying, she moved her right hand to push the button—
Suddenly, from behind her came a gray tentacle which grabbed her right hand.
“…!!”
Asuna endured, throttling down a scream, as she tried to force her finger closer to the button, but the tentacle held onto her like steel wire and and didn’t even budge. She tried to use her left hand, but just as she started to move it, a new tentacle twined around her arm. Asuna hands were pulled into the air, the rest of her body following.