Chapter 2

"Ngh…arrg…hyaa!"

The strained cries were paired with desperate sword swipes,

the blade swishing through nothingness.

The blue boar charged its attacker the next instant, nimbly

evading his slashes despite its massive bulk. As I watched the

beast's flat snout throw him skyward to roll across the field, I

couldn't help laughing aloud.

"Ha-ha-ha…not like that. The important part is your very first

motion, Klein."

"Yeow…Hairy bastard."

As the boar's attacker—my party member, Klein—rose to his

feet swearing, he shot back a pitiful reply in my direction.

"Easy for you to say, Kirito…He can really move!"

I'd only met this man just a few hours earlier, his reddish hair

flared back by the bandanna tied to his forehead, his lean figure

clad in simple leather armor. If we'd introduced ourselves with

our real names, it would have been hard not to use polite honorifics. But these were character names we'd chosen specifically

for this virtual world: He was Klein; I was Kirito. Attaching -san

to each other here would've just been weird.

Noting that Klein's legs were unsteady and his spill had probably dizzied him, I leaned down to the grass at my feet, scooped up

a rock, and held it above my shoulder. The system recognized this

motion as the initiation of a sword skill, and the stone began

glowing a faint green.

The rest happened nearly automatically. My left hand flashed,

and the rock traced a bright arc through the air, striking the blue

boar between its eyes as it prepared to charge again. The swine

uttered a squeal of rage and turned to me.

"Of course it moves; it's not a training dummy. But as long as

you initiate the motion and get the sword skill off properly, the

system will ensure that it hits the target."

"Motion…motion…"

Klein muttered the word like a spell, waving the cutlass in his

right hand.

The beast, properly known as a Frenzied Boar, was only a

level-1 mob, but with all the missed strikes and painful counterattacks, Klein's HP bar was nearly half gone. Dying wasn't a big

deal, since he'd simply revive at the nearby starting town, but

we'd have to trek all the way back here to the hunting grounds

again. This fight could only last one more round.

I tilted my head in hesitation as I deflected the boar's charge

with my sword.

"How do I explain this…? You don't just hold it up, swing it,

and cut the enemy like one, two, three. You have to pause just

enough in your first motion to feel the skill cue up, then kapow!

You blast it into him…"

"Kapow, huh?"

Klein held his curved sword at mid-level as his handsome features crumbled into a pathetic grimace beneath the tasteless bandanna.

He took one deep breath in and out, lowered his waist, then

lifted the sword as though to cradle it on his right shoulder. This

time, the system recognized the required motion and his arched

blade glinted orange.

"Raah!"

He roared and, in a much smoother motion than before,

bounded forward with his left foot. A satisfying shgeen! sound effect rang out as his blade carved a path the color of fire. Reaver, a

single-handed scimitar skill, caught the charging boar squarely

on the head, wiping out its remaining HP.

The enormous bulk shattered like glass with a pitiable squeal,

and purple experience numbers floated before our eyes.

"Hell yeah!"

Klein struck a victory pose, turning to me with a huge smile,

his hand held high. I returned the high five and cracked a smile of

my own.

"Congrats on your first kill. Just remember, that boar was basically the wimpiest little slime in any other game."

"Are you serious? I was convinced he was a mid-level boss."

"Not a chance."

I returned my sword to the sheath on my back, my smile fading to a wry grin.

Behind the friendly teasing, I understood Klein's euphoria.

With my extra two months of experience and leveling, I'd been

singlehandedly responsible for all of our battles so far, making

this the first time Klein had truly tasted the pleasure of dispatching a foe with his own sword.

As if to practice his lesson, Klein repeated the same skill sev-

eral times, hooting and cackling, while I turned to survey our surroundings.

The field around us was brilliantly illuminated by sunlight just

beginning to take on a tinge of red. Far to the north lay the silhouette of a forest, while a lake sparkled to the south, and the

walls of a town could be faintly glimpsed to the east. To the west

was nothing but endless sky and golden clouds.

We were standing in a field to the west of the Town of Beginnings, the starting area at the south edge of the very first floor of

Aincrad. Countless other players were no doubt fighting monsters

of their own in our vicinity, but the scale of this space was so vast

that none were within eyeshot.

Finally satisfied, Klein returned the cutlass to the scabbard on

his waist and approached, scanning the horizon with me.

"Man…no matter how many times I see this, I just can't bring

myself to believe that it's all inside a game."

"Just because we're 'inside' it doesn't mean the game world

has absorbed our souls or whatever. All our brains are doing is

bypassing our eyes and ears, taking in the information directly

through the NerveGear." I spoke through pursed lips like a pouting child, my shoulders hunched.

"Yeah, well, you're already used to it. This is my first full dive

into the game! It's unbelievable. What a time to be alive!!"

"You act like it's such a big deal."

I laughed it off but secretly agreed.

NerveGear.

The name of the hardware that runs Sword Art Online, this

VRMMORPG—a Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online

Role-Playing Game. But this machine is fundamentally different

from the home TV gaming consoles of the past.

Unlike previous hardware featuring two points of man-machine interface on a flat monitor and a handheld controller, the

NerveGear has just a single interface: a streamlined piece of

headgear that entirely covers the head and face.

Countless transmitters embedded within the unit generate a

multilayer electric field that connects directly to the user's brain.

Information is sent not to the eyes and ears but to the visual and

auditory centers of the brain itself. And not just vision and hearing. Touch, taste, smell—the NerveGear is capable of accessing all

the senses.

With the headgear on and the chin-arm locked in place, a simple "link start" spoken command instantly causes all external

noise to fade out and plunges your vision into darkness. Pass

through a floating rainbow ring materializing out of the emptiness, and you're in a different world composed entirely of digital

data.

In other words, this machine, released to the public in May of

2022, finally succeeded in creating a perfect virtual reality. The

major electronics manufacturer that developed the NerveGear

coined the term "full dive" to describe the act of connecting to the

VR world.

It was an all-encompassing isolation from reality, more than

worthy of the term.

After all, the machine didn't just provide virtual stimuli to all

five senses; it also intercepted and collected the brain's commands to the body.

This was a vital function in providing full control within the

virtual world. In other words, if your mental commands to your

real body were allowed to pass, you might run within the virtual

world during a full dive, but your real body would quickly slam

into the wall of your room.

It was only because the NerveGear intercepted the signals

from the spine to the body and converted them to digital information that Klein and I could race around the virtual battlefield,

swinging our swords with abandon.

You leap into the game.

The sheer impact of this experience profoundly enchanted

many gamers, myself included. Once you tasted a full dive, there

was no going back to the world of touch pens and movement sensors.

I turned to Klein, his eyes watering as he stared out at the rippling fields and distant city walls.

"So is SAO your first NerveGear game, period?"

"Yeah." Klein nodded, turning his gallant face to me, like some

proud samurai from the distant past.

When he maintained a serious expression, he could have been

the lead actor in a period piece, but this did not reflect his reallife appearance. It was nothing more than a virtual avatar created

from scratch out of a robust list of finely tuned parameters.

Naturally, I had also chosen a look befitting the hero of a fantasy anime, almost embarrassing in its shameless elegance.

Klein continued in a strong and clear voice, also likely to be

falsified.

"Actually, I got SAO first, so I needed to buy the hardware just

to play it. I mean, the first shipment was only ten thousand

copies, right? I'm one of the lucky ones. Although, since you've

been playing SAO since the beta test, that makes you ten times as

lucky. There were only around a thousand testers!"

"I guess you could say that." I scratched my head as he stared

holes into me.

I could remember as though it were yesterday the excitement

and enthusiasm that swept through the media when Sword Art

Online was announced.

The NerveGear and its revolutionary new full-dive format

were so novel that the actual software to take advantage of it

lagged in response. Initial offerings were simple puzzle and educational titles, a source of serious disappointment to full-blown

game addicts like me.

The NerveGear creates a true virtual world. But the effect of

such freedom is entirely lost when the world you inhabit is so

small that an impassable wall can be found within a hundred

yards in any direction. Hardcore gamers like me were initially entranced by the experience of truly being inside a game, but it was

only a matter of time before we sought a killer title in one very

specific genre.

We wanted an MMORPG—an online game that hosted thousands of players in the same vast world together, living, fighting,

and adventuring.

Just when desire and expectations had reached their peak

came the announcement of Sword Art Online, the first-ever entry

in the VRMMO genre.

The game took place in a massive floating fortress made up of

a hundred expansive levels. Armed with nothing but the weapons

in their hands, players explored each floor, packed with fields,

forests, and towns, looking for the staircase upward and defeating

terrifying guardian monsters in their quest to reach the top.

Unlike typical fantasy-themed MMOs, the concept of magic

spells had been largely excised from the setting, making way for a

nearly limitless combination of special attacks called "sword

skills." This was an intentional move to maximize the full-dive experience, forcing players to use their own bodies and swords to

fight.

Skills applied not just to combat but also to crafting disciplines

like blacksmithing, leatherworking, and tailoring; productive endeavors such as fishing and cooking; and even creative pursuits

such as playing musical instruments. Therefore, players weren't

limited to adventuring within the vast virtual world—they could

literally choose their own lifestyle within the game. With enough

hard work, a player could buy a home, till fields, and raise sheep

if he chose.

As details of these features trickled out in stages, enthusiasm

among the gaming public rose to a fever pitch. A beta test was announced, in which a thousand players would be granted access to

the game before release to help stress test the system and isolate

software bugs. The developer was quickly swamped with more

than 100,000 applicants, which represented nearly half of all

NerveGear units sold at that point. That I somehow managed to

slip through the crowd into one of those valuable slots was nothing short of a miracle. Not only that, being a beta tester gave me

priority access to the retail edition of the game when it hit the

market.

The two months of the beta test were like a fever dream. Even

at school, my head was swimming with thoughts of my skill loadout and equipment, and once I got home, I dove into the game

until dawn. In no time at all, the beta test ended, and when my

character data was erased, it felt like I had lost a part of myself.

The day was Sunday, November 6, 2022.

At 1:00 PM, Sword Art Online would finally go live to the public.

I was ready a full thirty minutes early, of course, logging in

without a second's hesitation and checking the server status to

confirm that more than 9,500 lucky purchasers were brimming

with anticipation just as I was. The major online retailers had

sold out of their initial shipments in seconds, and brick-and-mortar shops had made the news with crowds lining up three days

early to get copies of the game. In other words, everyone who

managed to secure a copy of SAO was almost certainly a serious

gaming addict.

My first interaction with Klein seemed to support that assumption.

As I logged in to SAO and marched down the familiar cobblestones of the Town of Beginnings, I ducked into a back alley

heading for a particularly cheap weapons dealer. He must have

noticed my lack of hesitation and pegged me for a beta tester.

"Hey, spare some advice?" Klein hailed me.

Impressed by his utter lack of restraint, I tried to pass myself

off as a helpful town guide NPC with a feeble, "H-hello…Are you

looking for the weapon shop?" Soon we were grouped together

into a party, followed by some hands-on combat lessons outside

of town—and here we were.

Frankly speaking, I was at least as antisocial in the game as I

was in real life, if not more so. I grew familiar with many other

gamers during the beta test, but there wasn't a single one of them

I'd have called a friend.

But this Klein fellow had a mysterious ability to slip past one's

defenses and latch on, and to my surprise, I didn't really mind.

Thinking that I might actually be able to stick around with him, I

opened my mouth again.

"So, what now? Want to keep hunting until you get the hang of

it?"

"You bet your ass I do! Or…normally I would…"

Klein's shapely eyes darted to the right—he was checking the

time readout displayed in the corner of his vision.

"But I need to log out for a bit to eat dinner. I scheduled a

pizza delivery for five thirty."

"Now there's a guy who comes prepared." I sighed.

Klein straightened up and continued as though he'd just

thought of something. "Um, so, I'm gonna go back to the Town of

Beginnings after this and meet up with some friends I made in

another game. If I introduce you, would you want to add them to

your friends list? It makes it easy to send messages to each

other."

"Uh, hmm…" I stammered.

I found it easy to get along with Klein, but there was no guarantee I'd hit it off with his friends. In fact, it seemed all too easy

to envision feeling uncomfortable around them, which might

make things awkward with Klein himself.

"Yeah, well…"

As I failed to give a clear response, Klein quickly shook his

head in understanding.

"I mean, I'm not saying you have to. There'll be other chances

to meet them."

"…Sure. Thanks for asking, though," I apologized, as Klein

shook his head again.

"None of that! I'm the one who should be thanking you! You

helped me out a ton; I'll make it up to you sometime. Y'know,

mentally."

He grinned and checked the time again.

"All right, man, I'm gonna log out for now. Thanks again, Kirito. We gotta hang out sometime."

As I reached out and grasped his extended hand, it occurred to

me that this man was probably an excellent leader in that "other

game" he'd played.

"Sure thing. If you ever have any questions, just ask."

"Yeah. Will do."

We released the handshake.

This was the instant that Aincrad, the world of Sword Art Online,

stopped simply being a fun game, a pleasant diversion.

Klein took one step backward, held out the index and middle fingers on his right hand, and swung them downward—the action

that called up the game's main menu screen. With a sound like

bells jingling, a translucent purple rectangle materialized in

midair.

I took a few steps backward myself, sitting down on a nearby

rock to open my own window. My fingers traced the display as I

sorted the items I'd earned from fighting boars.

The next instant—

"Huh?" Klein muttered, perplexed. "What the heck? There's

no log-out button."

At those last words, I stopped moving my hand and looked up.

"No button? That can't be true. Look closer," I said, exasperated. The tall scimitar-wielding hero leaned over, his eyes wide

beneath the ugly bandanna as he stared at the window.

In its default state, the elongated horizontal window featured

several menu tabs on the left and a human silhouette on the right

detailing the user's inventory and equipment. At the very bottom

of that menu was a LOG OUT button that enabled the player to

leave the world—or at least, there should have been.

As I returned my gaze to the list of items I'd earned over the

last few hours of battle, Klein repeated himself, louder this time.

"No. It's just gone. You should see for yourself, Kirito."

"I'm telling you, it has to be there…" I sighed, then tapped the

button in the upper left of the screen that led back to the main

menu.

My item storage display closed smoothly, returning the window to its default state. The silhouette reappeared, several equipment slots still empty, and the list of menu tabs materialized

again on the left.

With a familiar motion, I slid my finger down to the bottom

button…

And all of my muscles froze solid.

It was gone.

During the beta test—in fact, just after logging in at one o'clock

today—the log-out button was right in the corner, but as Klein

noted, it had simply disappeared.

I stared at the blank space for several seconds, then moved my

eyes upward, carefully scanning the menu tabs to ensure that it

hadn't simply changed positions when I wasn't paying attention.

Klein tilted his head at me as though to say, See?

"…Gone, right?"

"Yep. Gone," I reluctantly agreed.

He raised his cheeks in a grimace and stroked his shapely

chin.

"Well, it is launch day. Bugs happen. I bet tech support is getting drowned in calls. They're probably tearing their hair out

right now," he said nonchalantly, to which I gave a barbed retort.

"Is that all you have to say about it? Weren't you just talking

about getting a pizza delivery at five thirty?"

"Oh crap, that's right!"

I grinned despite myself at the sight of him bolting upright,

wide-eyed with alarm.

The red glow of my inventory screen subsided as I discarded

enough junk items to squeeze back under the weight limit. Standing up, I walked over to Klein, who wailed on about lost anchovy

pizzas and ginger ale.

"Look, you should try opening a support ticket with the GMs.

They might be able to boot you off from the system side," I suggested.

"I tried that, but there was no response. Man, it's already five

twenty-five! Kirito, was there any other way to log out of the

game?" he pleaded pathetically, his hands outstretched.

My lazy grin stiffened. A vague sense of anxiety began to chill

my spine.

"Let's see…Logging out, logging out…," I muttered.

To leave the game and return to my room back in the real

world was simply a matter of opening the menu window, hitting

the log-out button, then confirming the action when a safety

prompt appeared. It was quite easy—but I didn't actually know of

any other way to leave.

I looked up at Klein's face above me and slowly shook my

head.

"Nope. There's no way to manually log out other than through

the menu."

"But that's crazy. There has to be a way out of this!" Klein

wailed, as though denying my answer would make it untrue. "Go

back! Log out! Exit!!"

But nothing happened. SAO did not respond to voice commands.

He continued shouting and chanting, eventually growing agitated enough to leap about, until I called out in a low voice.

"It won't work, Klein. The manual doesn't say anything about

an emergency termination method, either."

"But…but that's crazy! I know games have bugs, but not the

kind where you can't even get back to your own home, your own

body, your own free will!"

Klein turned around to me, his face aghast. I agreed with him.

This was crazy. It was absurd. But it was the reality we were facing.

"You've gotta be kidding me…This can't be happening. We're

trapped inside the stupid game!" Klein ranted, breaking into a

panicked laugh. "I know—I'll just power off the machine. Or rip

the NerveGear off my head."

Klein rubbed his hands over his head as though removing an

invisible hat, but I felt the cold anxiety return.

"We can't do either of those things. We can't move our actual

bodies. The NerveGear intercepts all the commands going from

our brains to the rest of our limbs."

I tapped the back of my neck with my fingers.

"The system translates those commands into actions within

the game. It's the only way we're able to move our avatars like

this."

Klein fell silent and slowly lowered his arms.

We remained locked in place for a moment, our minds racing.

In order for the NerveGear to successfully create the full-dive

experience, it has to read the movement signals going from the

brain to the spine, cancel them out, and translate them into digital actions within the game world. No matter how desperately I

waved my arms inside the game, my real body would remain motionless on my bed, ensuring that I wouldn't bruise myself hitting

the corner of my desk by accident.

But it was that very feature that now physically prevented me

from disengaging the dive.

"So does this mean we either have to wait for the bug to be

fixed or for someone to pull the headgear off of our bodies?"

Klein muttered, still dumbfounded.

I gave him a silent nod.

"But I live by myself. You?"

I hesitated, then answered honestly. "I live with my mom and

little sister. I bet that if I don't come down for dinner, they'll

eventually force me out of the dive."

"Oh? H-how old's your sister?" Klein leaned forward, his eyes

suddenly sparkling. I pushed his head away.

"That sure got you to take your mind off the situation, didn't

it? Look, she's on a sports club at school and she hates video

games. She has nothing in common with people like us. Be-

sides"—I waved my hand, trying to change the subject—"don't

you think this is weird?"

"Sure it is. The game is buggy."

"This isn't just any old bug. Not being able to log out is a huge

deal. It could spell disaster for the game's future. Even as we

speak, your pizza is getting colder by the second. That represents

a real monetary loss for you, doesn't it?"

"Cold pizza is worse than nattō that doesn't get sticky," Klein

muttered cryptically. I continued.

"A situation like this means the programmers have to shut

down the servers and force all the players offline. And yet, even

though it's been at least fifteen minutes since we discovered this

bug, not only are we still online, there hasn't even been an official

announcement within the game. It makes no sense."

"Yeah, that's a good point." Klein rubbed his chin, finally looking suitably serious. His slender eyes glinted beneath the bandanna stretched over the high bridge of his nose.

I listened to Klein continue, struck by how odd it was that I

was discussing such real-world affairs with a person I'd only met

by sheer chance and would likely never see again if I simply

deleted my game account.

"Argus, the developers of SAO, made a name for themselves

based on their customer outreach. The fact that their first online

game was so highly anticipated is a sign of how much trust the

community has in them. How could they ruin that reputation

with such a stunning screwup on their very first day?"

"Exactly. Not only that, SAO is the very first example of a

VRMMO. If this turns into a huge controversy, the entire genre

could get regulated out of existence."

Klein and I sighed slowly at the same time, our virtual faces

turned to each other.

Aincrad's climate was attuned to the real-life season, meaning

that it was early winter in the game, just as it was outside.

I breathed in the chilly air deeply, filling my lungs with virtual

oxygen, and looked skyward.

More than a hundred yards above, the bottom of the second

floor glowed a faint purple. As I followed the flat, rocky surface

toward the horizon, my eyes finally rested on a vast tower far in

the distance—the labyrinth that would lead to the next level of the

castle. Beyond that, I could even see the aperture on the far side

of the floor.

It was now past 5:30, and the sliver of sky to be seen over the

vast distance was glowing crimson. The setting sun shone

through, lighting the rippling fields in a dazzling gold, and I

found myself at a loss for words despite the gravity of our situation.

In the next instant…

The world changed forever.