“You shouldn’t … have bothered,” growled Asuna Yuuki past gritted teeth.
From the moment she’d been trapped in this world, Asuna had asked herself the same questions hundreds of times, if not thousands.
Why did she decide to play with that brand-new gaming console, when it wasn’t even hers? Why did she put the helmet on her head, sink into the high-backed mesh chair, and utter the start-up command?
Asuna hadn’t bought the NerveGear, VR interface-of-dreams-turned-cursed-tool-of-death, or the game card for Sword Art Online, vast prison of souls—that had been her much-older brother, Kouichirou. But even he’d never been one for video games, much less MMORPGs. As the son of the representative director of RCT, one of the biggest electronics manufacturers in the country, he underwent every kind of education necessary to be their father’s successor, and everything that didn’t fall under that duty was eliminated from his life. Why he became interested in NerveGear—why he chose SAO—was still a mystery to her.
But ironically, Kouichirou never got a chance to play the first video game he’d ever bought. On the very day that SAO launched, he was sent on a business trip overseas. At the dinner table the night before, he’d tried to laugh off the frustration, but she could sense that he really was disappointed.
Asuna’s life hadn’t been quite as strict as Kouichirou’s, but she too had little experience with games aside from free downloads on her phone, even up to her current age in ninth grade. She was aware of the presence of online games, but the entrance exams for high school were fast approaching, and she had no reason or motive to seek them out—supposedly.
So even she had no explanation why, on the afternoon of November 6, 2022, she’d slipped into her brother’s vacant room, put the already prepared NerveGear on her head, and spoken the “link start” command.
The only thing she could say was that everything had changed that day. Everything had ended.
Asuna locked herself inside an inn room in the Town of Beginnings, waiting for the ordeal to be over, but when not a single message had made its way through from the real world in two weeks, she gave up hoping for rescue from the outside. And with over a thousand players already dead and the first dungeon of the game still unbeaten, she understood that defeating the game from the inside was equally impossible.
The only choice left was in how to die.
She had the option of waiting for months, possibly years, within the safety of the city. But no one could guarantee that the rule that monsters couldn’t invade towns would never be broken.
Asuna preferred to leave the city rather than curl up into a ball in the dark, living in fear of the future. She’d use all of her instincts to fight, learn, and grow. If she ultimately ran out of steam and perished, at least she didn’t spend her remaining days regretting the decisions of the past and mourning her lost future.
Run, thrust, and vanish. Like a meteor burning up through the atmosphere.
Such was Asuna’s mindset as she left the inn and headed out into the wilderness, totally ignorant of a single MMORPG term. She picked out a weapon, learned a single skill, and found her way deep into the labyrinth that no one else had successfully conquered.
Finally, at four in the morning on Friday, December 2, the accumulation of so many battles caused her to black out with exhaustion, and her quest should have ended. The name ASUNA carved into the Monument of Life beneath Blackiron Palace would be struck through, and everything would come to a close.
It would have. It should have.
“You shouldn’t have,” Asuna repeated. The slumping, black-haired swordsman dropped his eyes dark as night down to the ground. He seemed to be slightly older than she, but the surprising naiveté of his gesture surprised her.
A few seconds later, her original suspicion returned as a cynical smile crossed his lips. “I didn’t save you,” he said quietly. It was the voice of a boy, but something in it disguised his actual age.
“… Why didn’t you leave me back there, then?”
“I only wanted to save your map data. If you spent four days at the front line, you must have mapped out a good chunk of unexplored land. It would be a waste to let that disappear.”
She sucked in a breath at the logic and efficiency of his explanation. She was expecting the same answer that most people she’d met had given her, some claptrap about the importance of life, or the need for everyone to band together. She’d been prepared to cut through all of that nonsense—verbally, of course—but the practicality of his answer left her speechless.
“… Fine. Take it,” she muttered, opening her window. She’d finally gotten used to the menu system, tabbing over to access her map info and copying it to a scroll of parchment. Another button command materialized the scroll as an in-game object, and she tossed it at the man’s feet. “Now you’ve got what you wanted. So long.”
She put a hand in the grass to get to her feet, but her legs wouldn’t stay steady. The clock in her window showed that she’d been out almost a full seven hours, but her exhaustion hadn’t entirely worn off yet. She still had three more rapiers, though. She’d told herself before she left that she’d stay inside the tower until the last one’s durability level was below halfway.
There were still a few suspicions lurking in the back of her mind. How had the swordsman in the gray coat managed to bring her out of the dungeon to this forest clearing? And why did he take her all the way outside, rather than just to the nearby safe zone within the tower?
They weren’t worth turning back to ask him about, however. So Asuna turned to her left, in the direction of the black, looming labyrinth, and started to march off.
“Hang on, fencer.”
“…”
She ignored him and kept walking, but what he said next made her stop in her tracks.
“You’re doing all of this for the purpose of beating the game, right? Not just to die in a dungeon. So why don’t you come to the meeting?”
“…Meeting?” she wondered aloud. The swordsman’s explanation reached her ears on the gentle forest breeze.
“There’s going to be a meeting tonight at the town of Tolbana near the tower. They’re going to plan out how to beat the boss of the first-floor labyrinth.”
3
AINCRAD WAS BROADLY CONICAL IN SHAPE, SO THE lowest floor was therefore the largest. The circular floor was about six miles across with a surface of over thirty square miles. In comparison, the city of Kawagoe in Saitama Prefecture, home to over three hundred thousand, was a little over thirty-eight square miles.
Because of its size, there was actually a considerable variety of terrain to be found. At the southern tip of the landmass was the Town of Beginnings, a city over half a mile across, surrounded by a semicircular wall. Outside of the city were rippling plains filled with boars and wolves, as well as insect monsters such as worms, beetles, and wasps.
Across the field to the northwest was a deep forest, while the northeast held swampy lowlands dotted with lakes. Beyond these regions lay mountains, valleys, and ruins, each full of appropriate assortments of monsters. At the northern end of the floor was a squat tower three hundred yards across and a hundred yards tall—the first-floor labyrinth.
Aside from the Town of Beginnings, the floor was dotted with a number of other settlements of various sizes, the largest of which—though only two hundred yards from one end to the other—was Tolbana, a valley town closest to the floor’s labyrinth.
The first visit by a player to this tranquil town lined with massive windmills was three weeks after the official launch of Sword Art Online.
By that time, over eighteen hundred players had perished.
The mysterious fencer and I left the forest—not together, but at an awkward distance—and passed through the northern gate of Tolbana.
A purple message in my field of vision stating SAFE HAVEN indicated that we were within town limits. Instantly, I felt the exhaustion of the long day settle onto my shoulders. A sigh escaped my lips.
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If I felt this bad after only leaving the town that morning, the fencer behind me must have felt much worse. I turned back to check on her, but her knee-high boots did not falter. A few hours of sleep couldn’t have erased the fatigue of three days of straight combat, so she must have been putting on a brave front. It seemed like returning to town ought to be cause for relaxing both mind and body (and in this virtual setting, they were the same thing), but she didn’t appear to be in the mood for suggestions.
Instead, I kept things short and sweet. “The meeting’s at the town square, four in the afternoon.”
“…”
The face within the hood nodded slightly, but she kept walking right past me.
A slight breeze running through the valley town rippled her cape as she passed. I briefly opened my mouth but found nothing to say. I’d spent the last month vigorously avoiding all human contact as a solo player; I had no right to expect anyone to welcome me with open arms. The only concern I’d had was in saving my own life.
“Strange girl, yah?” a voice muttered from behind me. I tore my gaze away from the fencer and turned around. “Seems to be on death’s door, but never dies. Clearly a newbie, but her moves are sharp as steel. Who can she be?”
The voice, a high-pitched wheedle that rose into an odd nasal whine at the end of each sentence, belonged to a slippery little player an entire head shorter than me. Like me, she wore only cloth and leather armor. The weapons on her waist were a small claw and some throwing needles. It didn’t seem like the kind of stuff that would get her out to this dangerous zone, but this person’s greatest weapon did not have a blade.
“You know that fencer?” I asked her automatically, then grimaced, anticipating her answer. Sure enough, the little woman held up a hand, all five fingers extended.
“I make it cheap. Five hundred col?”
The smiling face had one very distinct feature. She’d used a cosmetic item to draw three lines on either cheek in the style of animal whiskers. Combined with her short mousy-brown curls, the overall effect was unmistakably rodent-like.
I’d asked her why she chose that appearance before, but her only response was “You don’t ask a girl the reason she puts on make-up, do ya? I’ll tell you for one hundred thousand col.” So the answer was still a mystery.
I silently swore to myself that one day, I’d actually cash in a rare item and pay the exorbitant fee, just to force an answer out of her.
“I don’t feel comfortable trafficking in a girl’s private information,” I muttered sternly.
“Nee-hee! Good mindset to have,” she said smarmily. Argo the Rat, the first information trader in Aincrad, chittered with laughter.
Watch out. Five minutes of chatting with the Rat, and she’ll have worked a hundred col outta you, someone had warned me once. But according to Argo, she’d never once sold a piece of information whose verification was unclear. She always paid a source for info she considered worth something, and only turned it into a product to sell once she’d made sure the story was solid. It seemed clear to me that a single piece of poor intel sold for cash would ruin her reputation, so while it wasn’t exactly the same as farming ingredients in dungeons and selling them to NPCs, as a business, it had its own set of perils.
Although I knew my skepticism was sexist, I couldn’t help but wondering why a female player would choose to dabble in such dangerous work. But I knew that if I asked, she’d quote me another price of one hundred thousand col, so I cleared my throat and asked a different question.
“Well? Is it the usual proxy negotiation today, rather than your main business?”
Now it was Argo’s turn to scowl. She looked back and forth, then prodded my back with a finger, guiding me to a nearby alleyway. With the boss meeting a full two hours away, there were few players milling about the town, but it seemed to be important that she not be overheard—probably something to do with her reputation as a guardian of secrets.
Argo came to a stop in the narrow alley and rested her back on the wall of the house (inhabited by an NPC, of course) before nodding.
“Yeah, that’s right. They’ll go up to twenty-nine thousand eight hundred col.”
“Twenty-nine, huh?” I grimaced and shrugged. “Sorry … my answer’s the same, no matter the number. Not gonna sell.”
“That’s what I told the client, but what can ya do?”
Argo’s main business was selling information, but she used her excellent agility stat to moonlight as a messenger. Normally she simply passed along brief verbal or written messages, but for the past week, she’d been a pipeline to me from someone very insistent, if not downright pushy.
He (or she) wanted to buy my Anneal Blade +6 (3S3D).
The weapon-strengthening system in SAO was relatively simple for a modern MMORPG. There were five parameters: Sharpness, Quickness, Accuracy, Heaviness, and Durability. For a price, an NPC or player blacksmith could attempt to raise a particular stat for you. The process required specific crafting materials depending on the stat, and there was always a probability that it would fail. This was similar to the way it worked in other games.
Each time a parameter was successfully raised, the weapon name gained a +1, or +2, and so on, but the actual statistic being affected wasn’t clear until you tapped on the item properties directly. Since it would be a pain to say “plus one to accuracy and plus two to heaviness” each time when trading with other players, it was common to abbreviate the information instead. Therefore, a +4 weapon with 1 to accuracy, 2 to heaviness, and 1 to durability would be labeled “1A2H1D.”
My Anneal Blade +6 (3S3D) increased sharpness and durability by three points each. It took quite a lot of persistence and good fortune to improve it that much on the first floor. Few players bothered to work on the Blacksmithing skill—which had no bearing on your odds of survival—and despite the dwarfish appearance of the NPC blacksmiths, their actual skill was sorely disappointing.
Even the base weapon was the reward of an extremely tough quest, so the sword’s current values had to be about the maximum a player could expect to find on the first floor. But it was still starter equipment. I might pump it up a few more times, but I’d find a better sword on the third or fourth floor, and the process would begin all over again.
For that reason, I had a hard time fathoming the motive of Argo’s client to pay the massive sum of 29,800 col for such a weapon. In a face-to-face negotiation, I could simply ask the buyer, but without a name to track down, there was no way to find out about them.
“And how much are they paying you to keep quiet? A thousand?” I asked. Argo nodded.
“Yeah, I’d say so. Feel like upping the ante?”
“Hmm… one k, huh? Hmmmm.”
This “hush money” was a fee that Mystery Bidder X was paying Argo to keep their identity hidden. If I offered to pay 1,100 col, Argo would pass that along via instant message, until they came back with 1,200 col. Then I’d be asked to pony up 1,300, and so on. If I ended up winning the bidding war, I’d learn who wanted to buy my sword, but I’d end up losing a significant amount of cash. That would clearly be an idiotic outcome.
“Great … So you’re an information broker who makes money even when you don’t sell? Gotta admire your dedication to your business,” I grumbled. Argo’s whiskered face broke into a grin and she hissed with laughter.
“That’s the best part about it, see? The moment I sell a piece of intel, I’ve got a brand-new product to sell: So-and-so just bought such-and-such information. It’s twice the profit!”
In real life, an attorney would never reveal the name of her client, but given the Rat’s motto of “all information has a price,” she didn’t seem to honor that taboo. Anyone who wanted to make a deal with her needed to know beforehand that their own information could be sold, but when her product was so excellent, who could complain about the price?
“If any female players want my personal information, let me know so I can buy theirs first,” I said wearily. Argo
cackled again, then put on a serious expression.
“Okay, I’ll tell the client you refused again. I’ll even throw in my opinion that they won’t get through to ya. So long, Kii-boy.”
The Rat turned and waved, then darted back out of the alley as nimbly as her namesake. After a momentary glimpse of her brown curls vanishing into the crowd, I felt sure she’d never get herself killed.
I’d learned several things over the first month of SAO, the game of death.
What separated a player’s likelihood of life or death? There were an infinite number of variables—stock of potions, knowing when to leave a dungeon, and so on—but somewhere at the center of those swirling factors was the presence of a person’s core, something they could believe in unconditionally. You might call it one’s greatest weapon, a tool necessary for survival.
For Argo, that was information. She knew everything crucial: where the dangerous monsters were and the most efficient places to hunt. That knowledge gave her confidence and a cool head, which raised her chances of survival.
What was my core? It had to be the sword on my back. More precisely, it was the feeling I got when my blade and I became one. I’d only managed to reach that mental zone a few times, but it was the desire to control that power at will, to be the unquestioned ruler of that realm, that drove me to stay alive. The reason I’d put points into sharpness and durability rather than quickness or accuracy was simple: the former were pure numerical increases, but the latter adjusted the system itself. They changed the sensation of swinging the sword.
But in that case …
What about the fencer on the frontier of the labyrinth? What was her core? I’d transported her outside of the dungeon (using means I could never tell her), but if I hadn’t been there, would she really have died? I could easily imagine her unconsciously getting to her feet as the next kobold approached, using her shooting-star Linear to dispatch the beast.