The Day of Beginnings

Game of death.

It was not a term with a clearly defined meaning. If it meant "a

sport with physical risk," that could apply to ultimate fighting,

rock climbing, or motorsports. There was probably just one criterion that separated those dangerous sports from a game of death.

In a game of death, fatality was listed in the rules as the

penalty for failure.

Not as the result of unintended consequences. Forced death,

as a punishment for player error, defeat, or breaking of the rules.

Murder.

If that was your definition, then the world's first VRMMORPG,

Sword Art Online, had just turned into a game of death. Not

more than twenty minutes ago, the game's creator and ruler, Akihiko Kayaba, had stated as much in undeniable clarity.

If your hit points fell to zero—if you "lost"—he would kill you.

If you tried to remove the NerveGear—if you "broke the rules"—

he would kill you.

It didn't feel real. It couldn't. Countless questions swam

through my mind.

Is that really possible? Is it possible for the NerveGear, a consumer game console for home use, to simply destroy a human

being's brain?

And more importantly, why do such a thing at all? I can understand taking a player hostage for ransom. But Kayaba

doesn't gain anything materially from forcing us to beat the

game with our lives on the line. On the contrary, he's lost his

standing as a game designer and quantum physicist and descended into being the worst criminal in history.

It made no sense. There was no logical sense.

But on an instinctual level, I did understand.

Everything Kayaba said was truth. The floating castle Aincrad,

setting of SAO, had gone from a fantasy world full of excitement

and wonder to a deadly cage with ten thousand souls trapped inside. What Kayaba said at the end of his tutorial—"this very situation is my ultimate goal"—was the truth. The deranged genius

had built SAO, built the NerveGear itself…to make this game real.

It was my belief in that fact that had me, Level-1 swordsman

Kirito, running at top speed.

All alone, through a vast grassland. Leaving my first and only

friend here behind.

To ensure my own survival.

Aincrad was built of a hundred thin floors, stacked on top of

one another in one mass.

The floors were larger on the bottom and smaller as you went

up toward the top, so the entire structure was broadly conical in

shape. The first floor was the biggest in the game, at over six

miles across. The biggest city on the floor, known as the "main

city," was called the Town of Beginnings, and it spread across the

southern end in a half circle that was over half a mile wide.

Tall castle walls surrounded the town, preventing monsters

from ever attacking. The interior of the town was protected by an

"Anti-Criminal Code" that ensured no player could lose a single

pixel of their HP, the measure of their true life remaining. Put another way, that meant you were safe if you stayed in the Town of

Beginnings, and you could not die.

But the very instant that Akihiko Kayaba finished his welcoming tutorial, I made up my mind to leave the city.

There were several reasons why. I didn't know if the code

would continue functioning forever. I wanted to avoid the infighting and distrust that were sure to develop among players. And the

MMO gamer instincts that went down to my very core caused me

to fixate on leveling up.

In a strange twist of fate, I loved games of death in fiction, and

I'd lived vicariously through many in books, comics, and movies

from all over the world. The actual subject of the games varied,

but they all seemed to share a common theory:

In deadly games, there had to be a tradeoff between safety and

liberation. There was no danger to your life if you stayed in the

safe area at the very start. But unless you risked danger to proceed forward, you would never be free from there.

Of course, I wasn't possessed by some heroic desire to defeat a

hundred floors of bosses and beat the game myself. But I was certain that out of the ten thousand players trapped in the game, at

least a thousand were of that ilk. Whether alone or in groups,

they would leave town, kill the weaker monsters around them,

and begin earning experience points, leveling up, gaining better

equipment, and becoming stronger.

That was where the second bit of theory came in.

In a game of death, the players' enemies weren't just the rules,

traps, and monsters. Other players could be your enemy. I had

never come across one that didn't turn out that way.

In SAO, the areas outside of town were PK-enabled. Surely no

one would actually kill another player—but sadly, there was no

guarantee that no one would succumb to the temptation of

threatening that in order to take another's gear and money. Just

the thought of a potential enemy with stats and gear completely

overshadowing my own made my mouth turn bitter with actual

fear and anxiety.

For that reason, I couldn't take the option to rely on the safety

offered by town life and abandon the possibility of strengthening

myself.

And if I were going to level up, there was no time to waste. I

knew that the safest grasslands around the town would soon be

jammed full of those players who chose action over safety. SAO's

monster pop rate was limited such that only a certain number

would spawn over a certain period of time. When the first wave of

prey was harvested, players would go bloodshot looking for the

next one and be forced to compete with one another over the ones

they found.

If I were going to avoid that state and level more efficiently, I

would need to move past the "relatively safe" areas into "slightly

dangerous" territory.

Of course, if this were a game I was playing for the first time,

totally ignorant of what lay around me, that would be suicide. But

for special reasons, I knew very well the terrain and monsters of

the lower floors of Aincrad, despite this being the game's first official day.

If I left the northwest gate of the Town of Beginnings and cut

straight across the open field, through a deep, mazelike forest,

there would be a village called Horunka. Though small, it was indeed a safe haven just like the big city, with an inn, weapon store,

and item shop; it was an excellent base of operations. There were

no monsters in the surrounding forest with dangerous effects like

paralysis or equipment destruction, so even playing solo, I was

unlikely to meet an accidental death.

I would go from level 1 to level 5 in Horunka. The time was six

fifteen in the evening. The fields around me were golden with the

evening sun pouring through the outer aperture of Aincrad, and

the forest in the distance was gloomy with dusk. Fortunately,

even after night, there were no powerful monsters around Horunka. If I continued hunting until after midnight, I would have

good enough stats and gear that I could move on to the next settlement by the time other players filled the village.

"…Talk about self-interest…I'm the very model of a solo

player, I guess," I mumbled to myself as I sprinted out of the city.

I had to be light and joking about it, because if I didn't, there

would be a different kind of bitterness than that of fear: the sour

tang of self-loathing.

If only I had that friendly bandana-wearing guy with the cutlass along. At least helping him level up and aiding in his survival

might overwrite my guilt somewhat.

But I left Klein, my only friend in Aincrad, back in the Town of

Beginnings. Technically, I invited him to come with me to Horunka, but Klein said he couldn't leave behind his guildmates

from a previous game.

I could have offered to bring them along. But I didn't. Unlike

the boars and caterpillars that even Level-1 players could handle

with ease outside the city, the forest ahead was full of more dangerous hornets and carnivorous plants. If you didn't know how to

react to their special attacks, you could easily run out of HP…and

actually die.

I was afraid of Klein's friends' dying—specifically, of the look

he would give me if that happened. I didn't want something bad

to happen. I didn't want to be hurt. That selfish desire caused me

to abandon the first player to speak to me and invite me to play

with him…

"…!!"

Even my self-deprecating line of thought couldn't cover up the

true revulsion that swarmed up from my stomach. I clenched my

teeth and reached back to grab the sword equipped over my back.

A blue boar popped in the grass just ahead. They were nonaggressive monsters, so I planned to just ignore them and race

through the grassland, but a sudden impulse drove me to draw

my simple starter sword and unleash the one-hit sword skill Slant

on it.

Reacting to being targeted, the boar glared back at me and

scratched the ground with its front right hoof: the animation for a

charge attack. If I faltered now and stopped the skill, I'd suffer

major damage. Both calm and irritated at myself, I stared down

the foe and aimed the skill for the back of its neck, the monster's

weak point.

My sword glowed a faint sky blue, and with a sharp sound effect, my avatar moved, half automatically. As it did for all sword

skills, the system assistance largely helped me do the slashing

motion on its own. Careful not to interfere with the timing of the

movement, I intentionally sped up my launch foot and right hand

to add power to the attack. I once spent nearly ten days in town

firing off the skill against a combat dummy to practice that trick.

My Level-1 stats and starter gear were as weak as it got, of

course, but with that little power boost and a critical hit on a

weak point, the Slant would take the blue hog—officially called a

Frenzied Boar—almost all the way down. My slash caught the

charging boar fiercely on its mane, boldly knocking the four-footlong beast backward.

"Greeeeh!"

The creature squealed, bounced on the ground, and stopped

unnaturally in midair. Spaash! There was a burst of sound and

light. The boar emitted a blue light and dispersed into countless

tiny polygonal shards.

I didn't even bother to look at the readouts of experience

points and dropped ingredient items as I charged right through

the cloud of visual effects without slowing. There was no feeling

of triumph. I thrust my sword back into the scabbard and ran toward the dark, approaching forest as fast as my agility stat would

allow.

I made my way through the forest paths as quickly as I could,

careful to avoid the reaction ranges of the monsters within, and

made it to the village of Horunka just before the sun disappeared

entirely.

Between the homes and shops there were only ten buildings in

all, which I scanned quickly from the entrance. All the color cursors that popped into view had the NPC tag on them. I was the

first to arrive—which made sense. I pretty much sprinted off

without a single word to anyone the moment that Kayaba's "tutorial" speech ended.

First, I headed for the weapon shop facing the cramped center

clearing. Before the tutorial, when SAO was still a normal game, I

had beaten a few monsters with Klein, so I had a number of ingredient items in my inventory. I wasn't the crafting type, so I

sold them all to the NPC storekeeper. I then used what little col I

had to buy a brown leather half coat with pretty good defense.

I hit the instant-equip button without hesitation. The sturdy

leather gear appeared with a brief glowing effect over my white

linen starter-shirt and thick gray vest. Bolstered by a feeling of

slight relief, I took a glance at the large full mirror on the wall of

the shop.

"…It's…me…"

The old shopkeep behind the counter lifted an eyebrow curiously as he polished a dagger sheath, then went back to his work.

The avatar in the mirror, aside from height and gender, was

completely different from the old Kirito I'd so painstakingly fashioned.

He was gaunt and thin, without a trace of manliness to his features. Black bangs hung low, and his eyes were black. In fact, they

were dark. It was my own, real self, recreated in virtual form in

startling detail.

The idea of this avatar wearing the same flashy metal armor

the old Kirito had worn sent a pulse of horrifying rejection

through my entire body. Fortunately, even light leather armor in

SAO provided the necessary defense for a speed-minded swordsman. I couldn't play a tank that attracted all the enemies' attacks,

but a tank build was pointless to a solo player anyway.

As long as circumstances permitted, I would continue wearing

leather. As plain as possible.

With that in mind, I left the weapon shop. I only upgraded my

leather coat, with no shield, and still held my starter sword. Next

I raced into the item shop and bought all the healing and antidote

potions I could, until my cash balance read zero.

There was a reason I didn't buy a new weapon. The Bronze

Sword, the only one-handed sword sold at this village's shop, was

more powerful than my starter Small Sword, but it ran out of

durability faster and was weak to the corrosive effects of the plant

enemies ahead. For hunting larger numbers, my Small Sword was

better. But I couldn't rely on the weak blade for long. I left the

item shop and sprinted for the house at the very back of the village.

An NPC stirring a pot in the kitchen, the very picture of a village wife, turned to me and said, "Good evening, traveling

swordsman; you must be tired. I would offer you food, but I have

none right now. All I can give you is a cup of water."

In a loud, clear voice—to make sure the system recognized my

statement—I said, "That is fine."

I could have just said "sure" or "yes," but I preferred to play

the role a bit more seriously. However, if I'd been more polite and

said, "Don't mind me," she would take me at my word literally

and not offer anything.

The NPC poured water from a pitcher into an old cup and set

it down on the table before me. I sat down in the chair and

downed it in one go.

The woman smiled briefly, then turned back to the pot. The

fact that something was bubbling away in there, yet she claimed

she had no food, was a hint. As I waited, eventually the sound of a

child coughing came from the closed door to an adjacent room.

The woman slumped sadly.

After several more seconds, a golden question mark appeared

over her head at last. It was the sign of a quest. I promptly asked,

"Is there a problem?"

That was one of the many acceptance phrases for NPC quests.

The woman turned slowly toward me, the question mark flashing.

"Traveling swordsman, it is my daughter…"

Her daughter was very sick, so she tried herbs from the market

(the contents of the stew) but that did not help, so her only choice

was to try a medicine harvested from the ovule of the carnivorous

plants in the western forest, but as the plants were dangerous and

the flowering ones were rather rare, she couldn't harvest it herself

and could you see your way to helping, traveling swordsman, because then she might just part ways with her ancestors' sword,

which had been passed down for generations…

I sat and patiently waited out the very long speech, punctuated

by various gestures. The quest wouldn't continue unless I listened

to the whole thing, and with the way the daughter coughed in the

background, it was hard to be rude.

She stopped talking at last, and a task updated on the quest log

located on the left side of my vision. I stood and shouted, "Leave

it to me!"—unnecessary but another part of the role—and darted

out of the house.

Immediately, the little platform in the center clearing chimed

the hourly melody that was common to every town in the game. It

was seven o'clock.

What was it like in the real world by now? It had to be chaos.

As my real body lay on my bed with the NerveGear attached, I

was sure either my mother, or sister, or both, were sitting next to

me.

What were they feeling now? Shock? Doubt? Fear? Or grief…?

But the fact that I was still alive in Aincrad meant that at the

very least, neither of them had tried to rip the NerveGear off.

That meant that, for now, they believed—in Akihiko Kayaba's

warning and in my eventual return…

In order to leave this game of death alive, someone would

need to reach the unfathomable hundredth floor of Aincrad, beat

a final boss monster that was impossible to even imagine, and

finish the game.

Of course, I didn't entertain the idea that I would do that—not

at all. What I should do—what I could do—was simply struggle

with all my might to survive.

First, I needed to be stronger. While I was on this floor, at the

very least, I needed to be able to protect my own life, no matter

how many monsters or antagonistic players attacked. I could

think about what to do next after that.

"…I'm sorry for worrying you, Mom…I'm sorry, Sugu. I know

you hate these VR games, and look what's happened now…"

Even I was surprised by the words that tumbled through my

lips. I hadn't called my little sister by that nickname in three

years or more.

If…if I got back alive, I'd look her in the face and called her

"Sugu" once more.

With that decision made for no real reason, I headed through

the village gate and into the eerie night forest.

There was no sky inside Aincrad, only the surface of the next

floor up, looming three hundred feet above at all times, so the

only way to see the sun directly was during a brief time in the

morning and evening. The same rule applied for the moon.

But that didn't mean that it was dark during the day and pitchblack at night. The VR game took advantage of its virtual nature

to provide proper sky-based lighting to allow for acceptable eyesight at all times. Even in the forest at night, there was just

enough pale light around one's feet to allow you to run without

falling.

But that was a separate issue from the psychological creepiness of it all. No matter how cautious you were, there was always

that cyclical fear that something might be just behind you. Of

course now I wished for the security of party members, but it was

too late to go back. Both in terms of distance and the game system.

A Level-1 player started off with two skill slots.

I used the first on One-Handed Swords at the very start of the

game right after one o'clock, and was planning to think hard

about what to use on the other one. But after Kayaba's nightmare

opening speech and leaving the Town of Beginnings, the fun of

weighing my options was lost.

There were certain invaluable, necessary skills to playing solo.

The most important were Search and Hiding. Both greatly increased one's survival, but the former aided in hunting effectiveness, while the latter was slightly less useful in this forest, for certain reasons. So I chose Search first and decided to add Hiding

when my next slot opened up.

But both of those skills were not very useful in a party, where

the added numbers and eyes provided the safety. So by choosing

Search, I had basically locked myself into playing solo. Perhaps I

would one day regret that choice, but for now, it was the right

one…

As I ran along, I noticed a small color cursor pop into existence. The Search skill increased my detection range, so I couldn't

see the owner of the cursor yet. The cursor was red, indicating a

monster, but the shade was a bit darker, more of a magenta.

The depth of red was a rough indication of the relative

strength of the enemy. Those monsters who were well beyond any

reasonable attempt to fight would be a dark crimson, darker than

blood. And the monsters so weak you'd hardly get any XP for

killing them would be a pale pink that was practically white. An

enemy about the same level would appear pure red.

The cursor in my view now was slightly darker than red. The

monster's name was Little Nepenthes. For being "little," the ambulatory, carnivorous plant was nearly five feet tall. It was Level

3, which explained why the cursor looked purplish to a Level-1

player.

This was not a foe to be overlooked, but I wasn't going to be

cowed, either. A thin yellow border—the sign of a quest target

mob—bound the cursor.

I stopped short, made sure there were no other mobs around,

then resumed running straight at the Little Nepenthes. Monsters

without eyes like this one were basically impossible to hit with a

back attack.

I stepped off the path and around an old tree, and it came into

view.

As the name suggested, it had a torso like a pitcher plant, supported at the base by a multitude of wriggling, writhing roots. On

either side were vines with sharp leaves, and the "mouth" at the

top was opening and closing hungrily, dripping sour saliva.

"…No luck," I muttered. Every once in a while, one of these

monsters would have a flower blooming on top. The "Little Nepenthes Ovule" I needed for the quest in Horunka would only

drop from those flowering Nepenthes. And the spawn rate for the

flowering kind was less than 1 percent.

But if you kept beating the normal Nepenthes, the flower rate

would rise. So fighting them wasn't a waste of time. There was

just one thing to be wary of.

At the same rate as the flowering type was another rare Nepenthes spawn with a round fruit. That was a trap—if you attacked, it would explode with a tremendous blast and shoot out

foul-smelling smoke. The smoke was not poisonous or corrosive,

but it would draw distant Nepenthes down upon you. If the area

was farmed out, that didn't mean much, but with the forest basically untouched right now, it would spell disaster.

I squinted and made sure the enemy had no fruit, then drew

my sword. The Nepenthes noticed me, and the two vines rose up

in a display of intimidation.

This mob would swipe with its daggerlike vines and expel a

corrosive liquid from its mouth. That was more variety than the

blue boars, who simply charged blindly, but compared to humanoid mobs like kobolds and goblins who used sword skills of

their own, it was still pretty easy.

And most importantly, it was designed for attack and had

weak defense. In the "old" Aincrad, I liked monsters like this. As

long as you didn't get hit, you could wipe them out in short time.

"Shuuuu!" The carnivorous plant hissed and thrust its right

vine forward. I detected its path instantly and leaped to the left,

swinging around the side and striking at the connection between

its thick stalk and the pitcher—its weak point.

It felt good. The Nepenthes's HP bar dropped nearly 20 percent.

The creature roared again and puffed up its pitcher, the warmup motion for its corrosive spray. It could cover a good fifteen

feet, so just backing up wasn't an option.

Not only would that take down my HP and armor durability

quite a bit, the stickiness would impede my movement. But the

angle of the spray was narrow, only thirty degrees facing forward.

I waited for just the right moment, and when the pitcher stopped

expanding, I jumped hard to my right this time.

Bshu! A pale green liquid sprayed out, hissing and steaming

when it touched the ground. But not a single drop hit me. When

my foot hit the ground, I held up my sword and whacked at the

weak spot again. The Nepenthes arched backward with a scream,

and yellow visual effects began to spin around it—I had inflicted a

stun effect. The idea of a plant being stunned was weird, but I

wasn't going to pass up this opportunity by thinking about it.

I drew back my sword, wide to the right. By holding it in place

for a moment, a sword skill initiated, and the blade glowed pale

blue.

"Raaah!"

With the first battle cry in this fight—since SAO's release, in

fact—I leaped forward. It was the single-strike flat slash Horizontal. The only difference between this and Slant was that the latter

was diagonal, but this move made it easier to hit the Little Nepenthes's weak point.

The sword skill struck the exposed stalk of the stunned mob,

which was just about halfway dead after the previous attacks.

Naturally, I had thrown a little extra effort into my forward foot

and swinging arm to boost the attack. The shining blade dug into

the hard stalk, leaving me with a brief bit of feedback, and then—

Thwack! The pitcher was cut loose from the stalk and flew into

the air. The rest of the HP gauge swung to the left, turning red. As

it hit zero, the Little Nepenthes's body turned blue and froze. It

exploded.

I came to a stop in the follow-up pose of the skill, sword held

out in front of me. About twice as much XP flooded in as for beating the boar. The time of battle was about forty seconds. If I

maintained that pace, I'd get quite an effective head start.

Naked blade still in hand, I looked around the area. A few

more Little Nepenthes cursors popped up at the edge of my detection range. Still no players.

I had to hunt as much as I possibly could before others showed

up here. I had to attempt to dry up the whole area's spawn rate

myself. It was quite an egotistical idea, but there was no concept

more paradoxical than a charitable solo player.

I settled on my target without emotion and resumed running

through the deep forest.

In the next fifteen minutes, I dispatched over ten Little Nepenthes.

Sadly, no flowering mobs had appeared yet. In this type of

quest, which gamers called "real luck dependent"—meaning they

came down to whether you were personally lucky or not—I

couldn't remember ever being showered with good fortune.

To my irritation, somewhere out there in the world, there were

players who scored ultrarare drops with a success rate less than

0.01% percent, or succeeded in upgrading a weapon ten times in

a row, or even managed to get close with a girl in the game. There

was no way to compete with those lucky SOBs aside from sheer

persistence and experimentation. In regards to scoring rare

drops, of course—I had no intention of hitting on every girl I saw.

In fact, after Kayaba's godly act of turning all in-game avatars

into their owners' actual appearance, I was certain that the number of girls in Aincrad had dropped dramatically. That saved me

the trouble of wondering if every girl I saw was secretly a guy, but

it had to be a real trial for those players who chose a starting

name and gear because they wanted to role-play as a female. For

their sake, I hoped that Kayaba had prepared a name-changing

item or quest somewhere within the game.

This mental diversion was brought about by a bit of confidence

as I finished off my eleventh Nepenthes. Just then, I heard a

pleasant fanfare. A golden light shone all around my body. In-

cluding the experience I'd earned hunting boars with Klein before

the game turned deadly, I had finally reached the threshold for a

level-up.

If I were playing in a party, I'd hear a rousing round of "gratz"

for the feat. Instead, all I heard was the rustling of the breeze

among the leaves as I put the sword back into my sheath. I

swiped downward with my right index and middle fingers to

bring up the menu window. Over in my status tab, I put one of

the three stat points I earned into strength, and the other two into

agility. Without magic spells in SAO, these were the only two stats

I could see, so there wasn't much point contemplating my options. In exchange, there was a great number of battle and crafting skills to choose from, so when I started earning more skill

slots, that's where the really big choices would come in.

But for right now, I had to focus on surviving the next hour. I

needed to level up until I had built up a good "safety margin" before I could stop and consider the future.

Done with my level-up, I closed the window—and heard two

abrupt, dry pops.

"…!!"

I leaped backward and put my hand on my hilt. I'd been so absorbed in my menu that I failed to pay attention to my surroundings—a terrible newbie mistake.

Cursing my own lack of discipline, I assumed battle stance and

saw a humanoid monster, one that shouldn't actually spawn in

this forest. No…it was a human.

And not even an NPC. A player.

It was a man, slightly taller than me. He wore the light leather

armor and buckler sold in Horunka. Like mine, his weapon was

the Small Sword. But he wasn't holding it. His empty hands were

held together in front of him, and his mouth hung open.

Meaning the pops were actually from this man—no, boy—clapping to congratulate me on the level-up.

I let out a little breath and lowered my hand. The boy smiled

awkwardly and bowed.

"…S-sorry for startling you. I should have said something

first."

"…No, it's my bad…I overreacted. Sorry," I mumbled and put

my hands into my pockets for lack of anything else to do with

them. The boy's smile widened in relief, his features giving him a

first impression of being earnest and serious. He put his right

hand up to his right eye for some reason, then realized what he

was doing and self-consciously dropped his hand. I guessed he

wore glasses in the real world.

"C-congrats on leveling up. That was quick," he said, and I automatically shrugged. I felt awkward, like he'd somehow sensed I

was just thinking about if I had been in a party at this moment. I

shook my head.

"No, it wasn't that fast…If anything, you're pretty quick here,

too. I thought I had another two or three hours before anyone arrived at this forest."

"Ha-ha-ha, I thought I was first, too. The road here's pretty

tricky to remember."

And with that, I finally came to a belated realization.

He was just like me.

Not in terms of weapons or gender. Not in the fact that we

were both SAO players and prisoners of this game of death.

This boy knew the game like I did. The location of Horunka.

The reason not to buy a Bronze Sword. And where the most Little

Nepenthes spawned. Meaning…

He was a former beta tester. Just like I was.

Today was November 6th, 2022, the first official day of Sword

Art Online, the world's first VRMMO. But three months earlier,

they'd run an experimental beta test with a thousand players,

chosen by lottery.

With a tremendous amount of real luck (or as I thought of it

now, bad luck), I was chosen out of the hundreds of thousands of

applicants. The test ran all through August. Thanks to my summer vacation, I was able to dive in from morning until night—or

in my case, midday to early morning. I ran all over Aincrad when

it wasn't a horrible prison, swinging my sword and dying. A lot.

Over and over.

Through an unlimited process of trial and error, I gained a

massive amount of knowledge and experience.

Little paths and shortcuts not listed on the map. The locations

of towns and villages, and the wares on sale there. The prices of

weapons and their stats. Where quests were offered and how to

beat them. Monster spawn locations, their strengths, their weaknesses.

All of this knowledge was what brought me here alive—to this

forest far from the Town of Beginnings. If I were a total newbie

who hadn't played the beta, I probably wouldn't even think of

leaving the city alone.

And the same could be said of the boy standing a few yards

away.

This swordsman, with slightly longer hair than mine, was undoubtedly another beta tester. I could tell that he was totally comfortable in the SAO VR engine just from the way he was standing,

not to mention his presence here, on the other end of a maze of

forest trails.

With all of this deduced over a few seconds, the boy confirmed

it all by asking, "You're doing the Forest Elixir quest, too, huh?"

That was the very quest I'd accepted in the woman's home just

minutes ago. There was no way to deny it now. I nodded, and he

put his hand up to his nonexistent glasses, grinning.

"Anybody using one-handed swords has got to do that quest.

Once you get that Anneal Blade as a reward, it'll take you all the

way to the third-floor labyrinth."

"…Even if it doesn't look that impressive," I added, and he

laughed. When he was done, he paused for a moment, then

spoke. It wasn't what I was expecting to hear.

"Since we're both here, want to work on the quest together?"

"Uh…but I thought it was a solo-only quest," I responded automatically. Quests were divided into those that could be finished

with a party and those that couldn't, and the Forest Elixir was the

latter. Since only a single Little Nepenthes Ovule would drop

from a single mob, a party would need to hunt down multiple

items to finish as a group.

But the boy seemed to expect that answer. He grinned.

"Yeah, but the flowering kind gets more likely, the more normal ones you kill. It'll be more effective than the two of us working separately."

In theory, he was right. As a solo player, you could only go

after solitary monsters, but as a duo, we could handle two at a

time. It would shorten the amount of time needed to pick out a

proper target, allow us to kill them faster, and increase the probability of coming across a flowered mob as we went.

I was just about to agree with his plan when I stopped my

avatar short.

Just over an hour ago, I'd left friendly Klein behind…Did I really have the right to go forming a new party, just after I'd abandoned my first friend here?

But the boy interpreted my hesitation in a different way and

quickly added, "I mean, we don't have to form a party. You were

here first, so you can get the first key item. If we keep going with

the probability boost, I'm sure the second will show up in short

order, so you can just go along with me until then…"

"Oh…uh, right…well, if you don't mind…" I said awkwardly. If

we formed a party to fight, any key items we earned would go not

into our individual inventories but to a temporary shared storage,

which would make it possible for him to claim the item and run

off. He probably thought I was concerned about that. I hadn't

been thinking that far ahead, but it wasn't worth correcting him.

The boy smiled again, walked closer, and held out his hand.

"That's great. Well, here's to working with you. I'm Kopel."

As a fellow beta tester, I might have actually known him back

then, but the name wasn't familiar to me.

He could certainly be using a different name now, and the

color cursor didn't display his official character name, so it might

not even be his real name. I could have used an alias as well. But I

wasn't very good at coming up with names; in every online game I

played, I always used the same handle, clumsily adapted from my

real name. So I wasn't clever enough to come up with another one

on the spot.

"…Hiya. I'm Kirito."

Kopel reacted oddly to my introduction.

"Kirito…Wait, have I heard that…?"

It seemed that he knew of me in the beta test, if not directly. I

sensed incoming danger and immediately interrupted.

"You're thinking of someone else. C'mon, let's hunt. We've got

to earn two ovules before the other players catch up."

"Y-yeah…That's right. Let's do this."

And with that, Kopel and I raced off toward a pair of Little Nepenthes clumped together.

Kopel's battle instincts were impressive, just as I'd expected

from another tester.

He understood the right range for a sword, the monsters' various tells, and how to use a sword skill. From my perspective, he

was a bit too passive and defensive in his style, but given the circumstances, I couldn't blame him. We naturally assumed a pattern of teamwork in which Kopel drew aggro first, and I led an

all-out assault on the enemy's weak point. This worked well, and

we tore our targets to polygonal shreds one after the other.

The hunt was going smoothly, but the more I thought about it,

the odder the situation became.

Kopel and I hadn't shared a single word about the state of SAO

yet. Was Kayaba's proclamation true? If we died in the game,

would we die for real? What would happen to this world we were

trapped in…? He had to be thinking about the same questions as I

was, yet we never spoke a word about anything other than items

and the quest. Yet despite that, our conversation was totally natural, not forced.

Perhaps that was just a sign of what MMO addicts we were.

Even in a realm of death without a log-out button, as long as we

were in a game, we were going to quest and earn levels. It was pathetic in a way, but considering that Kopel had applied to beta

test SAO, it should be obvious that like me, he was an online

gamer to the bone. We were just able to put our impulse to power

up our characters in front of our fear of dying…

No.

That wasn't right.

Both Kopel and I…we just weren't able to face reality yet.

Our brains were busy calculating experience gains, spawn

rates, and other numbers, but they weren't considering the big

picture. We were avoiding the reality that if our HP reached zero,

the NerveGears we were wearing would fry our brains with highpowered microwaves, and the only way for us to escape that was

to blindly face forward. You might even say that all the players

still hanging out in the Town of Beginnings were reacting to the

situation with more clarity than we were.

But if that was the case, then the reason I could face these

fearsome monsters with absolute composure was only because I

wasn't facing reality. I was only able to avoid the sharp vines and

dangerous acids, which were perfectly capable of killing me, because I wasn't feeling the true danger that was present.

The moment I came to this realization, an insight hit my brain.

I was surely going to die…and very soon.

If I didn't understand the first rule of this game, that true

death lurked everywhere, then I wasn't seeing the line that I

should not cross. I might as well be walking alongside a deadly

cliff in pure darkness, trusting luck to keep me alive. In that

sense, leaving the town alone and heading into a dark forest with

poor visibility was already an extremely reckless move…

A shiver of cold burst through my spine into all of my extremities, hampering my movement.

At that moment, I'd lifted my sword to strike the umpteenth

Nepenthes in a row on its weak point. If I held that spot for half a

second more, it would hit me with a very painful counterattack.

I came back to my senses and restarted my Horizontal skill,

which just barely severed the plant's stalk in the nick of time. The

creature exploded and the intangible bits of glass passed through

me as they expanded outward.

Fortunately, Kopel was dealing with another Nepenthes with

his back to me, so he didn't notice my momentary lapse. Five seconds later, he finished off the monster with a normal attack, exhaled, and turned back to me.

"…They're not popping…"

There was fatigue in his voice now. Over an hour had passed

since we started hunting together. Together, we'd killed about a

hundred and fifty Nepenthes, but there were still no flowering

types.

I worked my shoulders hard, trying to dislodge the chill that

still rested between my shoulder blades.

"Maybe they changed the pop rate since the beta…I've heard

about other MMOs tweaking drop rates on loot between beta and

full release before…"

"It's possible…What should we do? We've gained a couple levels, and our weapons are pretty worn down. Maybe we should go

back to—" Kopel started to say, when a faint red light appeared at

the foot of a tree not forty feet away.

A number of rough, blocky models were being drawn in

midair, combining together and taking shape. It was a familiar

sight to me—the process of a monster popping.

As Kopel said, I'd gained a ton of XP from our run of slaughter, and we were both Level 3 now. From what I remembered of

the beta, the expected level for beating the first floor was 10, so it

was still too early to push onward, but there wasn't much point

waiting for a single Nepenthes. The enemy's color cursor was now

regular red, not magenta.

"…"

Kopel and I stood in the grass, watching the monster spawn.

Within a few seconds, the hundred-and-somethingth Nepenthes

of the night took shape and began to walk, vines wriggling. It had

a vivid, gleaming green stalk, a carnivorous pitcher with its own

individual markings, and on top—shining red in the gloom—an

enormous tuliplike flower.

"…"

After several seconds of blank stares, our faces snapped toward each other.

"—!!"

I made a silent scream. We brandished our swords and prepared to leap onto the long-awaited flowering mob like cats stalking a mouse.

But I stopped suddenly, reaching out with my free hand to

hold back Kopel as well.

He looked at me in bewilderment, so I held up my index finger, then pointed beyond the flowering Nepenthes as it walked

away from us.

It was hard to see among the trees, but farther in that direction was the shadow of another Nepenthes. I'd only noticed it because of the increased level of my Search skill. Kopel didn't have

that skill yet; he squinted into the darkness, but after several seconds, noticed it at last.

If it were just a normal Nepenthes hiding behind the flowering

one, there would be no reason to hesitate. But of all the odds, the

second one also had a large mass bobbing over its large pitcher

head.

If that was a flower, too, I was ready to lower my "real bad

luck" sign forever. But dangling from the second creature's thin

stalk was a round ball about eight inches across—a fruit. It was

bulging as if ready to burst at any moment, and if we harmed it in

any way, it would instantly rupture and release foul-smelling

smoke. That smoke would draw an army of crazed Nepenthes,

plunging us into a trap we couldn't escape from, even after leveling up.

What to do?

I wasn't sure. In terms of skill, it was certainly possible that we

could defeat the fruit-bearing one without touching the fruit. But

it wasn't an absolute guarantee. If there was any risk of death

whatsoever, perhaps we should wait for the two Nepenthes to

separate a bit before moving in.

But then a rumor I recalled from the beta made me hesitate

further. I thought I remembered hearing that if you waited for too

long after a flowering Nepenthes popped, it would eventually turn

into the exceedingly dangerous fruit model.

It wasn't out of the question. In fact, it sounded quite likely. If

we stood here and watched, the petals on the flowering Nepenthes fifty feet away might begin to fall, eventually leaving us

with two fruit-bearing monsters on our hands.

"What to do…" I murmured without thinking. The fact that I

didn't have an immediate answer was proof that I didn't have that

clear line between danger and safety established yet. If I wasn't

sure, the reasonable decision was to pull back, but I couldn't even

trust my sense of reason at this point.

As I stood there, practically locked in a stun effect, I heard

Kopel whisper, "Let's go. I'll grab the fruit one's attention while

you take out the flowering one as quick as you can."

Without waiting, he strode off, his starter boots crunching the

grass.

"…All right," I answered, following him.

I hadn't gotten over my ambivalence. I just kicked it down the

line. But once things went into motion, I had to focus on controlling my sword and avatar. If I couldn't do even that, I really

would die.

The flowering plant noticed Kopel's approach first, and it

turned around. The edges of the pitcher, grotesquely similar to

human lips, opened and hissed, "Shaaaa!"

Kopel moved to the right, heading for the fruit-bearing Nepenthes in the back, but the flower stayed on him. I approached it

from behind and raised my sword, my mind empty.

Despite being a rare variant that appeared less than 1 percent

of the time, the flowering Nepenthes had basically the same stats

as the normal kind. Its defense and attack were slightly higher,

but now that I was Level 3, that difference was negligible.

While my brain raced with questions, the physical instincts I'd

built since the beta test moved my avatar automatically, dodging

and parrying the Nepenthes's vine attacks, then countering. In

ten seconds, its HP bar was yellow. I jumped back and prepared

the finishing sword skill.

All that battle had raised my One-Handed Sword skill, and I

could feel the initiation speed and range of the attacks increasing.

Before the Nepenthes could even half inflate its pitcher to spit

acid, my Horizontal skill cut across with a blue line of light, severing the stalk.

It let out a scream that was a bit different from the usual kind.

The severed pitcher rolled to the ground and burst into little polygons—but not before the flower on its head fell off.

A faintly glowing orb about the size of a fist rolled out and toward my feet, coming to stop against my boot toe just as the monster's torso and mouth shattered.

I crouched down and scooped up the glowing Little Nepenthes

Ovule. I'd killed about a hundred and fifty of the monsters just to

gain this item, grappling with many questions along the way.

It was enough to make me want to fall to my butt in the grass,

but I couldn't relax yet. A short distance away, Kopel was doing

me the favor of distracting the dangerous fruit-bearing Nepenthes, and I needed to help him.

"Sorry for the wait!" I shouted, looking up. I dropped the ovule

into my belt pouch—I'd feel better having it stored safely in my

inventory, but I didn't have time to perform all those actions now.

I held up my sword and ran several steps—

But my feet stopped for some reason.

Even I didn't know why. Up ahead, my temporary partner

Kopel was avoiding attack nimbly with sword and buckler. He

was good at defense, because he was able to glance over at me

now and then, even in the midst of battle. Those earnest, narrow

eyes, staring at me. That stare.

Something in that stare stopped my feet.

What was it? Why would Kopel look at me like that? Doubting,

perhaps pitying.

He deflected a vine attack with his buckler and broke away

from the fight, glanced quickly at me, and said, "Sorry, Kirito."

Then he turned to the monster and held his sword high over

his head. The blade started glowing blue. He was starting a sword

skill—the motion for the overhead slice attack, Vertical.

"Wait…that's not going to work…" I said automatically, while

my mind still puzzled over what he'd just said to me.

The weak stalk of the Little Nepenthes was hidden beneath its

prey-trapping pitcher, so vertical attacks were minimally effective. And Kopel had a very clear reason not to use a vertical slice

now. He must know that.

But once a sword skill started, it wouldn't stop. With the system behind the wheel, his avatar leaped forward on autopilot and

drove the glowing sword downward upon the Nepenthes's pitcher

—and the bobbing fruit hanging above it.

Powww!

The forest shook with a tremendous blast.

It was the second time I'd heard that sound. The first was in

the beta test, of course. One of the temporary party members at

the time had accidentally struck it with a spear, and a swarm of

Nepenthes descended on us. The four of us, all levels 2 or 3, died

before we could escape.

After smashing the fruit with a Vertical, Kopel quickly sliced

the Nepenthes's pitcher loose, killing it. The monster promptly

blew up, but the green gas hanging in the air and the stench in my

nostrils did not go away.

As Kopel leaped away from the smoke, I mumbled, dumbfounded, "Wh…why…?"

It wasn't an accident. It was intentional. Kopel hit the fruit of

his own volition to make it explode.

The beta tester who had worked with me for the last hour did

not look me in the face.

"…Sorry."

I saw a number of color cursors appear on the other side of

him.

To the right. To the left. Behind us. They were all Little Nepenthes, summoned by the smoke. It had to be every single individual currently present in the area. There were at least twenty of

them…no, thirty. The moment I recognized that it was pointless

to fight, my legs started to run, but that in itself was pointless.

Even if I broke free of the net, the Nepenthes' max speed was

much higher than you'd imagine from their appearance, and another monster would just target me before I could break free. Escape was impossible…

Was it suicide?

Was he planning to die here and take me down with him? Had

the threat of true death driven this man to try resigning from the

game altogether?

It was all I could think about as I stood stock-still.

But my guess was incorrect.

Kopel put his sword back into the scabbard on his left side, not

looking at me anymore, and started running into the nearby

brush. His stride was steady, full of intent. He hadn't given up on

life. But…

"It's pointless…" I said, all air and no voice.

The swarm of Little Nepenthes was coming in from every direction. It would be difficult to slip through them or fight your

way out, and even if you succeeded, another foe would just hold

you back. In fact, if he was going to run, why would Kopel use

Vertical on it at all? Was he planning to die, then got frightened

by the swarm and decided to make one last struggle?

As my half-numb brain tried to grapple with all this, I watched

Kopel leap into a small overgrowth of brush. His avatar was covered by the thick leaves, but his color cursor…

Disappeared. He wasn't more than seventy feet away, but his

cursor vanished from view. For a moment, I wondered if he'd

used a teleport crystal, but that was impossible. They were incredibly expensive, unaffordable at this stage, and they weren't

sold on the first floor or dropped by any monsters here.

Which left just one answer. It was the effect of the Hiding skill.

His cursor disappeared from the view of players, and he no longer

attracted the attention of monsters. Kopel's second skill slot

wasn't open; he used it on the Hiding skill. That was how he

snuck up on me before our first meeting without me detecting

him…

As the mass of monsters thundered closer and closer, I finally

—and very belatedly—realized the truth.

Kopel wasn't attempting suicide or fleeing in fear.

He was trying to kill me.

That was why he struck the fruit and drew all those Nepenthes

here: He could use his Hiding skill to escape the danger. All

thirty-plus monsters would be left to concentrate solely on me. It

was an orthodox trick, an MPK—monster player kill.

Knowing that made his motive much clearer: to steal my gear

and the Little Nepenthes Ovule I put in my pouch. If I died, all

items I had equipped or in my pouch dropped on the spot. Once

the swarm of Nepenthes left, he could scoop up the ovule, return

to the village, and complete the quest.

"…I see…" I mumbled. Meanwhile, the beasts themselves were

finally coming into view.

Kopel, you weren't hiding from the reality of the situation.

Just the opposite. You recognized this game of death and took

your place as a player. You decided to lie, cheat, and steal your

way to survival.

Strangely, I felt no anger or enmity toward him.

My mind was strangely calm, despite being put in a deadly

trap. Perhaps that was partially because I'd already recognized a

hole in Kopel's plan.

"Kopel…I'm guessing you didn't know," I said to the brush,

though I had no way to tell if he could hear me or not. "It's your

first time taking Hiding, right? It's a useful skill, but it's not all-

powerful. The thing is, it doesn't work very well on monsters who

rely on senses other than sight. Such as the Little Nepenthes."

Part of the hissing horde coming down on us like an avalanche

was clearly heading for Kopel's hiding spot. By now, he had to be

realizing that his Hiding attempt wasn't working. This was the

exact reason that I chose Search first.

Still calm, I spun around and stared down the charging line of

plants. The ones behind me would attack Kopel, so I didn't need

to concern myself with them for now. If I could wipe out the enemies ahead before the battle behind me finished, I might have a

chance at escape. Even if that chance was a hundredth of 1 percent.

I gripped my Small Sword, still not recognizing the full reality

of the situation, despite death bearing down on me. After over a

hundred battles, the sword was considerably worn, the blade

chipped here and there. If I was too rough, it might even break in

this fight.

I would keep the number of attacks to a minimum. I would

only use Horizontal, boosted by my movements, so that I hit each

enemy on its weak point and killed it in one hit. If I couldn't manage that, I was sure to end up dying due to a broken weapon, a

truly miserable end.

Behind me, I heard monster roars, the clashing of attacks, and

Kopel screaming something.

But I didn't pay attention. Every one of my nerves was fixed on

the enemies ahead.

What happened over the next few minutes—it couldn't have

been more than ten—I couldn't fully remember afterward.

I lost all higher thinking. All that existed was the enemy before

me, my sword, and the body swinging it—the movement signals

my brain was emitting.

I tracked the monsters' trajectories, evaded with minimal

movement, and countered with my sword skill. It was the same

thing I'd done in every other battle, only executed with perfect

precision.

There were no auto-homing magic attacks in SAO. So theoretically, if a player had good-enough decision-making and response

time, he could evade every single attack. But I wasn't that skilled

of a player, and there were too many enemies, so I couldn't dodge

everything. The vines coming from all directions nicked my

limbs, and the deluges of corrosive spit put holes in my new

leather coat. Each hit took down my HP bar, bringing virtual and

real death one step closer.

But I dodged all the direct hits just in time and kept swinging

my sword.

If I got knocked into a delay of even half a second by a direct

hit, I would be battered about continuously until I died. Either

they would eventually whittle my HP down to zero first or they'd

knock me still and wipe me out in an instant.

I'd been in this kind of desperate situation countless times in

the beta test, and in all the other MMOs I'd played before this.

Each time, after a brief struggle, I'd let my HP drain away, grumbling about the experience penalty or hoping I didn't lose my

weapon.

If I really wanted a taste of reality here, I should try that now.

At least then I'd find out if Kayaba was telling the truth or just

playing a very nasty, tasteless prank.

I thought I heard a little voice whispering that suggestion into

my ear. But I ignored it, continuing to use Slant and Horizontal

on the endless stream of Nepenthes.

Because I didn't want to die? Of course I didn't.

But there was another motive that drove me to fight, something different. Something that twisted my mouth into a fierce

grimace—or even a smile.

This is it.

This was SAO. I spent at least two hundred hours diving into

the beta test, but I never saw the true nature of the game. I wasn't

fighting in the true sense.

My sword wasn't an item of the weapon classification, and my

body wasn't simply a movable object. There was a place you could

reach only when those things were combined with the mind when

in a situation of extremes. I had only glimpsed the entrance to

that world from a distance. I wanted to know what came next. I

wanted to go further.

"Ruaaaahhhh!!"

I howled, leaped.

The Horizontal even outstripped the light, blasting two consecutive Nepenthes' pitchers skyward.

Then, from far behind me, I heard a sharp, nasty crash, a brief

blasting apart of a body.

It was not anything like the sound of a monster exploding. It

was the death sound of a player.

Beset upon by at least a dozen of the monsters, Kopel had finally perished.

"…!!"

I just barely stopped myself from turning to look, and made

sure to quickly finish the last two in my vicinity.

Only then did I turn around.

Having finished off their first target, the Nepenthes were looking at me with bloodthirsty interest. There were seven of them.

Kopel must have killed at least five of them. I was certain that the

lack of a scream from him was a sign of his beta-tester pride.

"…GG," I said, the standard compliment for a player of a game

well played, and I held my sword out. Perhaps escape was an option by then, but the thought didn't even enter into my head.

Among the seven Nepenthes bearing down on me, of all the

irony, one of them had a bright red flower blooming atop its carnivorous pitcher.

If Kopel had kept working hard, rather than trying to MPK me,

he could have soon earned his own ovule. But that lesson was lost

on him. Choice and result: that was all there was.

My HP bar was under 40 percent and would soon fall into the

red, but I no longer felt sure I was going to die. Sensing that the

two on the right were about to enter the spitting animation, I

raced toward them and dispatched them both at once while they

were charging their attacks.

Over the next twenty-five seconds, I finished off the other five,

bringing the battle to an end.

In the spot where Kopel vanished, I saw his Small Sword and

buckler. They were both about as ragged as my gear.

He fought for several hours in the floating castle Aincrad, then

died. Technically, his HP dropped to zero, and his avatar disintegrated. But there was no way for me to know if, somewhere in

Japan, lying down on his bed, the player controlling that avatar

was truly dead or not. All I could do was see off the warrior

named Kopel.

I thought for a moment, then picked up the sword and stuck it

into the base of the biggest tree around. Then I picked up the

ovule from the second flowering plant and laid it next to the

weapon.

"It's yours, Kopel."

I got to my feet. The durability of the abandoned items would

slowly tick away and they would disappear, but for at least a few

hours they would serve as a grave marker here. I turned on my

heel and started toward the path to the east that would take me

back to the village.

I'd been tricked, nearly died, witnessed the end of the one who

tricked me, and somehow just barely survived, but my sense of

the "reality" of the game of death was still hazy. At the very least,

my desire to be stronger had grown somewhat since before. Not

to leave the game alive, but the secret, shameful desire to know

the ultimate pinnacle of sword battle in SAO.

Our long hunting trip must have really dried up the spawn

rate, as I made it back to Horunka without encountering a single

monster along the way.

It was nine o'clock. Three hours had passed since Kayaba's tutorial.

By this time, there were a few players in the clearing of the village. They were probably former testers, too. At this rate, if all the

testers kept moving forward, it would lead to a major rift between

them and the vast majority of inexperienced players…but it

wasn't really my place to worry about that.

I didn't feel like talking to anyone, so before any players could

notice me, I headed down the back path to the end of the village.

Fortunately, the NPC hadn't yet entered her late-night activity

pattern—there was still orange light in the window of the house.

I gave the nonfunctional knocker a little rap, then opened the

door. There was the mother, still boiling something at the window. There was a golden exclamation point over her head that in-

dicated an in-progress quest.

I walked over and took the Little Nepenthes Ovule out of my

waistpouch, the center of the orb still glowing a faint green.

She broke out into a smile that immediately took twenty years

off of her age, and she accepted the ovule. As she fired off thanks

after thanks, my quest log updated on the left side of my view.

The now-young mother dropped the ovule into the pot, then

walked to a large chest on the south end of the room and opened

the lid. From inside she pulled out a faded, but clearly more impressive longsword in a red scabbard. She returned to me, and

with another bow of thanks, presented the sword with both

hands.

"…Thank you," I said simply, taking the weapon. I felt its

weight press down against my right hand. It felt about half as

heavy as the Small Sword. I'd used this Anneal Blade quite a lot in

the beta test, and it would take some time to get comfortable with

it again.

A message floated up informing me I'd completed the quest,

and the bonus XP from that feat pushed me into level 4.

The old me would have leaped up and out of the village to

challenge the Large Nepenthes found farther into the western

woods to test out my new blade.

But I no longer had the motivation for that. I stored the new

weapon in my inventory and slumped into a nearby chair. The

quest was over, so the young mother would no longer bother to

offer me water. She turned her back on me, stirring away at the

pot.

A fresh wave of exhaustion flooded through me, and I gazed at

her as she busied herself. How many minutes passed with us

doing just that? But as I watched, she took a wooden cup off the

shelf and scooped a ladleful of the pot's contents into it.

Carrying the steaming cup even more carefully than the sword

earlier, she walked toward the door in the back. Without much

reason, I stood up and followed her. The NPC opened the door

and proceeded into a dimly lit room. I was pretty sure I remembered trying to open the door myself in the beta, and it had been

locked by the system. Hesitantly, I crossed the threshold.

It was a small bedroom. The only furniture was a set of drawers against the wall, a bed near the window, and a small chair.

Lying on the bed was a little girl, about seven or eight years

old.

Even in the light of the moon, I could tell she was sickly. Her

neck was scrawny, and the shoulders poking out above the bedsheet were bony.

The girl's eyelids fluttered open when she sensed her mother's

presence, and then she looked at me. I stopped still, surprised,

and then her pale lips rose in a tiny smile.

The mother reached out and helped her sit up, holding a hand

to her back. Suddenly, the girl tensed and coughed. Her brown

braid ran limp down the back of her white negligee.

I checked the color cursor for the girl again. Sure enough, it

had the NPC tag right on it. Her name was Agatha.

Agatha's mother rubbed her back gently and sat down in the

bedside chair.

"Look, Agatha. The traveling swordsman brought this medicine from the forest. If you drink this, I'm sure you'll feel better."

She held up the cup with her other hand and gave it to the girl.

"…Okay," Agatha said in a cute, high-pitched voice. She held

up the cup with both hands and drank it, gulp by gulp.

No, there was no golden light that shone down from the heavens, color didn't immediately return to her face, and she didn't

leap to her feet and run around the room. But if it wasn't my

imagination, I thought Agatha's cheeks were a bit rosier than before when she lowered the cup.

She gave the empty cup back to her mother, then looked at me

again and grinned. Her lips moved, and she lisped a few words,

like tiny little jewels.

"Thank you, Big Bwudda."

"…Ah…"

I gasped, unable to come up with a different response, my eyes

wide.

In the past—long, long in the past, I remembered a similar experience.

My sister, Suguha, was bedridden with a cold. Our father was

overseas for work, as usual, and our mother had to go to work for

a little bit, so I was in charge of watching over her for two hours.

At the time, I was…some grade in elementary school. Honestly,

I'd been annoyed by the whole thing, but I couldn't just leave her

behind and play, so I wiped away Suguha's sweat and changed

out the cooling pack for her forehead.

To my surprise, she suddenly asked for ginger tea.

I had to call Mom to ask how to make that. All I needed to do

was put ginger juice and honey into hot water—it was even easier

than cooking in Aincrad. But for a kid with no cooking experience, it was a challenge. Despite nearly slicing up my fingers on

the grater, I managed to put together a cup of ginger tea and

bring it to her. Instead of her usual insults, she looked at me with

a blissful expression, and—

"…Ung…kh…"

I couldn't keep the sound from escaping my throat.

I wanted to see them.

I wanted to see Suguha, Mom, and Dad.

The overwhelming impulse rocked my avatar, and I faltered,

putting my hands on Agatha's bed. I lowered my knees to the

floor, squeezed my white shirt, and sobbed again.

I wanted to see them. But that wasn't allowed. The electric

field from the NerveGear cut off my conscious mind from the real

world and trapped me in this place.

Using every ounce of willpower to hold in the sobs threatening

to rip free of my throat, I felt like I finally understood the "truth"

of this world.

It wasn't about dying or living. There was no way for me to

"earn" a real understanding of death here to begin with. Because

in the real world, a place where death was just as permanent as

here, I'd never been close enough to death to know.

No, it was the fact that this was an alternate world. That I

couldn't see the people I wanted to see. That was the one truth.

The reality of this world.

I buried my face in the sheets, gritted my teeth, and trembled

violently. There were no tears. Perhaps there were tears falling on

my real cheeks, as I lay on my bed back home in the real world.

Perhaps they were in view of Suguha, watching over me in person.

"…Wut's wong, Big Bwudda?"

A soft hand touched my head.

Eventually, it started to clumsily caress my hair. Over and

over.

Until the moment my crying ended, the little hand never

stopped moving.