Chapter 5

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…

She straightened her back and stared resolutely down the hallway, and then took one leaden step forward. Once she started

moving, there would be no going back.

It seemed the hallway continued without end. There wasn't

even a scratch on the walls, much less any joints between panels

to break their monotony. After a time, she couldn't even be sure

she was moving forward anymore. Only the occasional orange

light overhead marked her progress, and with great relief she

eventually noticed a second door far ahead.

It was exactly the same as the last one. She carefully touched

the panel, and again the door slid open silently.

Behind the door was another identical hallway, only this one

ran left and right. Disappointed, she stepped through, then was

startled to see that when the door automatically closed, it melted

perfectly into the wall without a trace that it was ever there. She

felt around in a panic, but nothing made the door open again.

Asuna's shoulders slumped, but she told herself to forget the

door—she wouldn't be going back, anyway. She raised her head

and looked both ways.

This time the hallway was gently curved, rather than straight.

After a moment of consideration, she took the right path.

Onward she walked, her quiet footsteps the only sound. Again

her sense of movement began to melt away, until it seemed that

she had simply been walking in loops around the same endless

circle of hallway. And then, finally, Asuna spotted something that

wasn't just another stretch of wall.

Stuck on the gray wall of the inside curve was a posterlike object. She raced over and saw that it was a map of the area. She

consulted it eagerly.

At the top of the rectangular sign was a title in a plain font that

read LABORATORY MAP, FLOOR C. Below it was a simple diagram. It showed

that the structure had three floors, each of which was a big circle,

and she was on the top floor.

There was nothing on Floor C except for the circular hallway.

There wasn't even a marking for the straight tunnel that had

brought her here from the birdcage. But on Floors B and A below,

the inside of the circle was lined with various rooms and facilities:

Data Viewing Room, Main Monitoring Room, Sleeping Quarters,

and so on.

Access to the other floors was found at an elevator, located at

the top of the circle on the map. The elevator shaft met all three

circular floors, and continued down below that.

Asuna followed the straight shaft down on the map until it

ended with a large, rectangular room. A chill ran down her back

when she read the label: TEST SUBJECT STORAGE.

"Test subjects…"

The words left a sour aftertaste in her mouth.

This was clearly the laboratory for Sugou's illegal experiments.

Hiding it all within a virtual game would certainly make it easy to

conceal from the company. And if the secret was in danger of

leaking out, the simple press of a button would remove all traces

of it without a paper trail.

Knowing the purpose of his research, the term test subjects

could only refer to one thing. They were the other former SAO

players that Sugou still held captive. Through some means, he

had their minds held within that storage room on the map.

After a long silence, Asuna turned and began to walk down the

curving hallway again. She kept a quick pace for several more

minutes until a plain sliding door came into view along the outside wall to her left. There was a plate affixed to the wall next it,

upon which there was a downward-pointing triangle.

She took a deep breath and touched it with her finger. The

door instantly slid open to reveal a small, rectangular room. She

stepped inside and turned around, and came face-to-face with an

elevator panel, just like any in real life.

After a moment's hesitation, Asuna pressed the lowest of the

four buttons. The door closed, and to her surprise she felt a

falling sensation. The small box carrying Asuna descended

silently through the enormous tree, and after many seconds, the

virtual sense of speed eased away. A crack that had not existed

before opened in the middle of the smooth white door, and the

two halves retreated into the walls.

As quietly as she could, Asuna snuck out of the doorway.

Before her eyes was another plain hallway no different from

the ones above. She checked to make sure there was no one

around, then started walking.

The outfit Oberon had given her was only a simple, sheer onepiece that offered little comfort, but she was glad to be barefooted

now. If she were wearing shoes, she couldn't have avoided creating footsteps that would echo down the hall. Back in SAO, she

would sometimes take the defensive hit and go barefoot, just to

make it easier to ambush unsuspecting monsters from behind for

extra damage.

Even outside of battle, back in the ruined sector of Algade,

she'd play the "Sneak Attack" game with Kirito, Klein, and Liz,

and with her light equipment and almost no sources of noise,

Asuna always placed well. She'd never been able to land a back

attack on Kirito, so one time she tried going barefoot out of frustration. He sensed her wooden blade just before it hit him on the

back of the head and easily slipped out of the way, then grabbed

her leg and tickled her foot until she thought she'd die laughing.

It was that world she longed for now, even more than the real

world that she couldn't be sure actually existed anymore. When

she realized that tears were coming to her eyes, Asuna shook her

head to get her feelings under control.

Kirito was waiting for her in the real world. The only place she

truly belonged was in his arms. She had to keep moving to make

that happen.

This hallway was not quite so long. She soon came across a tall,

narrow door straight ahead. Asuna told herself that if this one

was locked, she'd have to go back up into the laboratory to look

for a system console. But contrary to her fears, the door slid open,

just like the rest. She had to squint to block out the powerful light

that came from within.

"…?!"

Once she could see inside the door, Asuna gasped.

It was a breathtakingly vast chamber.

She thought it resembled an enormous white event hall. It was

hard to gauge the scale of the room, because the three walls in the

distance held not a single detail to distinguish them visually. The

entire ceiling was glowing white, and the similarly colored floor

had neatly packed rows of short pillars, arranged together into a

grid.

Once she was sure there was no movement inside, Asuna hesitantly stepped into the room.

From her position, there were eighteen rows of the pillarlike

objects. If the room was a perfect square, that would make the

total eighteen squared, or just over three hundred. She approached one of the pillars, the fear sharp in her throat.

The round pillar reached from the floor to Asuna's chest. It

was just wide enough that she could fit both arms around it.

Something was floating just off the smooth, flat surface of the top.

It was, quite clearly…a human brain.

It was actual size, but the coloring was not realistic—it was

made of some bluish-purple translucent material. The model was

extremely fine, however. It looked more like a sapphire sculpture

than a hologram.

Upon closer examination, Asuna saw that there were rhythmic

pulses of light at various spots on the transparent brain, little

lines that turned into colorful sparks at their end points. They

were almost like bundles of extremely fine sparklers.

She watched, brows furrowed, as the spreading network of

light suddenly pulsed stronger. The sparks went from yellow to

red, flickering menacingly. A translucent graph below the brain

was recording sharp peaks. The detailed log running next to the

graph was full of numbers and symbols, along with the occasional

word like pain and terror.

It's suf ering, Asuna realized suddenly.

The brain right in front of her was agonized with pain, sadness, perhaps even fear. Those little sparks were screams. A faint

image of the face belonging to that brain floated before Asuna's

eyes like a vision, twisted to the extreme, the jaw open as wide as

it could go, silently screaming over and over and over.

She fell backward, unable to stand the horrifying image. She

flashed back to the TEST SUBJECT STORAGE label on the map and Oberon's

phrase, emotion-manipulation technology. The two concepts

overlapped and formed one terrible conclusion.

This brain and the hundreds around it were not computergenerated objects, but actual human minds—real-time monitors

of the former SAO players. People who should have been freed at

the end of the game, but who had somehow been spirited away to

this place by Sugou's hand and subjected to inhumane research.

This was a map of the manipulation of thoughts, emotions, and

memories through their NerveGear.

"How…how could you do such a horrible thing…"

She covered her mouth with both hands. The research being

done here was one of the great taboos, like human cloning. It

wasn't just a simple crime. This was the destruction and desecration of the last vestige of human dignity: the soul.

Asuna craned her neck to the right. Six feet away was an identical pillar with another transparent brain floating on top. The

construction was identical, but whoever this brain image belonged to, it was much calmer. The sparks were yellow with the

barest tinge of red, and as slow as thick liquid.

On it continued, to the next row and beyond: a seemingly infinite array of prisoners, their crystal brains a spectrum of colors,

each one screaming in despair.

Asuna fought down her impulse to panic and rubbed at the

teardrops pooling in her eyes.

It was unforgivable. She'd make him pay. She and Kirito

hadn't risked their lives to help Sugou undertake such a horrendous sin. She'd expose his crime and see that he was punished appropriately.

"Just hang on. I'm going to save you soon," she whispered, caressing the side of the anguished brain. She looked up again, eyes

resolute, and strode with purpose through the rows of pillars farther into the room.

Just as she counted ten rows of pillars, Asuna heard something that sounded like a human voice. She instinctually dropped

down behind the nearest source of cover and scanned the area

carefully, trying to discern the source of the sound. It seemed to

be coming from farther ahead and to the right. She snuck forward, almost crawling on hands and knees.

After several pillars, she noticed something odd ahead.

"…?!"

Asuna shrank back, blinked rapidly, then stuck her head out

again.

The sixty-first floor of Aincrad was nicknamed "Bugland" by

its players. As the name suggested, it was overflowing with insectthemed monsters, a particular type of hell to squeamish female

players like Asuna. The worst were the giant, slimy bull slugs.

Their black-spotted gray hides were covered with a slick substance, and each followed its target with three pairs of eyestalks

of varied sizes, only to then attack with horrendous tentacles that

extended from its mouth. In short, they were straight out of a

nightmare.

Now, just a few dozen feet away from Asuna, two creatures

that eerily resembled those bull slugs were having a conversation.

The giant slugs were watching one of the brains and excitedly

discussing it. The slug on the right was screeching with delight,

its eyestalks swiveling back and forth.

"Ooh! He's having another dream about Spica. The B13 and

B14 fields are off the scale. Sixteen's pretty high, too…He's lovin'

it."

The slug on the left, who was prodding the holo-window floating next to the test subject, replied, "Sure it's not a coincidence?

Only his third time, right?"

"It's the emotional guidance circuit modeling, I tell you. I put

that image of Spica into his memory centers, but this frequency is

way over threshold, right?"

"Hmm. Guess we should raise the monitoring sample rate…"

Asuna shrank back into the shadow of the pillar, her skin

crawling at the hideous slugs and their screeching voices. She

wasn't sure why they had to take that appearance, but it seemed

clear that they were Sugou's assistants in his inhumane research.

Based on their conversation, they didn't seem to possess the

slightest hint of a moral compass.

She clenched her right fist, wishing she had a sword in it.

She'd show them the end they deserved.

Asuna retreated, trying to control the fires of rage that consumed her. Once she'd put some distance between herself and the

slugs, she headed farther toward the back of the chamber. Carefully but quickly, she passed row after row of pillars until she was

at the last line. There, she saw a simple black cube floating in

front of the distant white wall.

It reminded her of the system console she'd once seen in the

underground labyrinth below the base floor of Aincrad. If she

could access that cube with administrator privileges, perhaps she

could finally log out of this mad world.

There was nothing to hide her up ahead. Asuna took a deep

breath to steel herself, then leaped forward out of the shadow of

the pillar.

She raced over to the console as quickly and quietly as she

could. It was only thirty feet or so, but it felt like a mile. She kept

her feet running, trying desperately not to get tangled up, expecting to hear a shout from behind with every step—until, finally,

she reached the console safely. Asuna spun around just in case—

she could see the waving tentacles over the endless rows of pillars. The slugs were still lost in debate.

She returned to the console. The diagonally sloped top surface

was black and quiet, but there was a thin slit on the right side

with a silver keycard still stuck in the top of the slot. With a silent

prayer, she grabbed the card and slid it downward.

A ping sounded and she ducked her head. A blue window and

holo-keyboard appeared to the left of the card slit.

The window was filled with a variety of menus. She browsed

the small English letters quickly, trying to hold back her panicked

impatience.

She extended a trembling finger to touch a button marked

TRANSPORT at the bottom left. Another window buzzed open with a

full map of the laboratory area. This system would apparently let

her jump to various rooms within the facility.

But she had no more business in this place. Asuna scanned the

lists frantically until she caught sight of a small button that said

EXIT VIRTUAL LAB.

This is it! she thought to herself and touched the button. An-

other window popped up. The small rectangle asked EXECUTE LOG-OFF SEQUENCE? with two buttons marked OK and CANCEL.

Please, God, she silently prayed, moving her hand to touch the

button.

A gray tentacle wrapped around her wrist.

"…!!"

Asuna somehow held in the scream that threatened to burst

out of her throat. She desperately tried to lower her finger to the

button, but the tentacle was as firm as steel wire. When she tried

to swing her left hand over instead, another tentacle caught it.

Both of her arms were pulled up into the air until her feet left the

ground.

Asuna's captor slowly turned her around in midair. As she

feared, it was the giant slugs she'd passed moments earlier.

Four orange eyes the size of tennis balls swooped toward her

on narrow stalks. The expressionless orbs gazed impassively at

her, as though scanning her face and body. Eventually the left

slug's round mouth slurped open to emit a screeching voice.

"Who are you? What are you doing? And how did you get

here?"

Struggling to keep her fear under control, Asuna tried to answer as casually as she could. "Let me down! I'm Mr. Sugou's

friend. He was letting me observe the area, and I'm just on my

way out."

"Oh? Why didn't I know about this?" the slug on the right

asked, two of its eyes tilting sideways in an apparent sign of curiosity. "Did you hear anything?"

"Nope. Besides, it'd be an awful idea to show this place to an

outsider."

"Oh…hang on a sec…" A round eyeball stretched closer until it

stared directly into Asuna's face. "I know who you are. You're the

one Sugou's keeping at the top of the World Tree…"

"Oh, yeah. I remember that. Man, the boss has it made. Look

at this cutie!"

"Ugh…"

Asuna looked over her shoulder and tried to hit the button

with her foot, but a fresh tentacle from the slug's mouth reached

out and caught her ankle. She wriggled, trying to break free, but it

was too late—the prompt had apparently timed out, and the logout window returned to the original menu.

"C'mon, don't make trouble now."

The slugs wrapped her in more and more tentacles until she

was truly immobilized. The thin, fleshy ropes dug into the soft

skin of her stomach and thighs.

"Ouch! Stop…Let go of me, you monsters!"

"Well, that's mean. We're just in the middle of experimenting

on deep sensory mapping."

"Yes. It took a lot of training to learn how to manipulate these

bodies like this!"

Asuna's face screwed up at the unique dull pain of the virtual

world, as though her nerves were coated with silk, but she managed to shoot back a response.

"Aren't you…supposed to be scientists?! How can you undertake such…such illegal, inhumane experiments and still live with

yourselves?!"

"Personally, I think this is still more humane than exposing

test animals' brains to open air and jamming electrodes into

them. I mean, all they're doing here is dreaming."

"Yeah. Sometimes we even let 'em have a really wonderful

dream. It's nice to spread the love once in a while."

"…You're insane…" Asuna choked. A chill running down her

back. The emotionless slugs weren't a facade; it was their true

form.

The slugs shared a look and began to discuss between themselves, unaffected by Asuna's retorts.

"The boss is on a business trip, right? You should go out and

get some orders."

"Tsk, fine. Don't go having too much fun without me, Yana."

"I know, I know. Just get outta here."

One of the slugs released its hold on Asuna's body and used a

tentacle to deftly flip through the console's menus. A few buttons

later, the large creature silently and abruptly disappeared.

"…!!"

Asuna felt panic burning her body like a hot poker. She twisted

and writhed with all of her strength. The exit to the real world—

what she'd dreamed of for so long—was right next to her. The

doorway was slightly open, and the light from the outside was

shining through, beckoning her.

"Let go!! Let go!! Let me out of here!!" she screamed, but the

slug's grip did not weaken.

"I can't do that; the boss would kill me. Listen, don't you get

bored just being stuck in here with nothing to do? Have you ever

tried fooling around on electrodrugs? I'm getting bored of just

playing with dolls."

Asuna felt a cold, clammy tentacle brush her cheek.

"S-stop it!! What are you doing?!"

She tried to resist, but the slug sent more and more tentacles

after her. They wrapped around her limbs and trunk and even

began to slip into her dress.

Stifling her urge to shiver at the disgusting crawling sensation,

Asuna let the strength drain out of her body, feigning the loss of

will to fight. One of the eager tentacles approached her mouth.

The instant it touched her lips—

Asuna raised her head and bit the ropy feeler as hard as her

jaws could snap.

"Gak!! Yeowww!!" the slug screamed, but she only bit harder.

"S-stop—ow! Okay, okay!!"

Only when she felt the tentacle under her clothes retreat did

Asuna open her mouth. The injured probe slithered out pitifully.

"Damn, I forgot the pain absorber ran out…" it moaned to itself, eyestalks retreating. A white pillar sprang up next to it, and

the other slug popped back into place.

"…What are you doing?"

"N-nothing. What did the boss say?"

"He was freakin' furious. Told us to put her back in the birdcage on top of the lab, change the door passcode, and keep her on

twenty-four-hour watch."

"Damn. I was hoping we could have some fun with her first…"

Asuna's sight seemed to grow dark with despair. Her one-in-a-

million chance was trickling through her fingers.

"Let's at least walk her back, rather than teleporting. I want to

enjoy the sensation of her skin."

"You're such a weirdo."

The slug holding Asuna prisoner started turning slimily toward the entrance of the storage chamber. When both creatures

looked away for a moment, Asuna quickly stretched out her right

leg and deftly gripped the keycard stuck in the console's slot,

pulling it free with her toes.

The window shut down with the removal of the key, but the

slugs didn't seem to notice. Arching her back like a shrimp, Asuna

managed to transfer the key from her toes to her hands, which

were bound tight behind her back.

"C'mon, no struggling."

The slug hoisted her up and began slithering toward the exit.

The door of the birdcage slammed shut. The slug fiddled with the

number pad and waved at Asuna.

"So long. Let's hang out if you manage to break loose a second

time."

"I hope I never see you again," she said coldly, walking to the

far side of the cage. They watched her regretfully, but eventually

turned away and proceeded back along the branch.

Night had covered the land while she was inside the lab. As

she watched the twinkling of the city lights far, far below, Asuna

murmured under her breath.

"I won't let this stop me, Kirito. I won't give up. I'm going to

break out of here."

She looked down at the silver card in her hand. It was probably useless without a console, but at the moment, it was her only

hope.

Asuna strode over to the bed, and, pretending to stretch and

lie down, she slipped the card beneath her large pillows.

She shut her eyes and felt the veil of sleep slowly envelop her

exhausted mind.