But after their second midair clash earlier, Leafa thought she’d detected a weakness in the enemy’s strategy. She summoned blind courage, unhesitatingly diving straight for the figure at the center of the wedge. The gap closed in no time. All of her attention focused on the sharp tip of the enemy’s silver lance.
The high-pitched whine of the sylphs’ descent and the metallic roar of the salamanders’ approach mixed dissonantly as they grew louder, and when the two crossed paths, there was an explosion that shook the air.
Leafa gritted her teeth and evaded the fangs, which were the enemy’s deadly lance thrust, with nothing more than a slight inclination of her neck. She ignored the burn of the tip as it grazed her cheek. The next instant, she brought down the long katana from directly overhead, aimed at the enemy’s red helmet.
“Seyyy…”
And struck.
“Yaaah!!”
His eyes went wide with shock beneath the thick visor, but before she could process the satisfaction, there was a burst of yellow-green light and a massive tremor through her hands as the enemy flew backward.
His HP bar shot downward, but not even a third of his health was lost thanks to his thick armor. More importantly, however, a shock to the head of that caliber would ensure he’d be out of the fight for precious seconds. Leafa immediately readied herself for the next move.
Right here!!
The weakness in the salamanders’ heavy attack was how long it took them to regroup once they’d crossed paths with the target. As soon as she shot past the other four enemies, Leafa twisted hard, wings outstretched, in a sharp left turn.
Her entire body groaned with the hard horizontal g-force, but she withstood it, pushing with her right wing and running control with her left. Soon the enemy line came into view, still in the process of turning to meet her.
Even if the armor-laden salamanders knew her plan, there was no way for them to speed their rotation. She darted forward, sword flashing at their flanks.
Her torso slash caught the leftmost fighter cleanly. Their formation fell apart.
Now I just need to force them into a melee!
Out of the five salamanders, only the leader Leafa had already dispatched was using Voluntary Flight. The others were equipped with controllers, which meant Leafa had a considerable advantage when it came to midair dexterity.
She looked around for Recon and saw him in fierce combat with the rightmost salamander. His demeanor might not have shown it, but he was a veteran player. Once Recon had a foe in close combat, his skill with a dagger shone.
Leafa stuck fast to the rear of her target, meting out constant and significant damage with her long katana. We might actually win this, she began to think. The only concern in her mind was the prior blast of fire magic: One of the five must be a mage. They were all in heavy armor, which meant one of them was probably just a spellsword with some secondary magic at his disposal. But backup skills or not, even low-level salamander fire magic packed a serious punch.
Common sense said that the mage would be on the right or left flank, which meant that either Leafa or Recon was dealing with him at this very moment. As tightly as they clung to their opponents, they were keeping either foe from firing off any spells. If they could just take down these two, it would be an even fight from that point on.
“Rahhh!!”
Leafa unleashed another of her patented overhand slices with a bellow. It struck the salamander on the shoulder, tearing another chunk out of his already red HP bar.
“Damn it!” he cursed, and his body was suddenly crimson with flames. The fire roared and ejected tiny red droplets until only a short lick of flame was left floating in the air. This “Remain Light” marked the spot the salamander had died. If a resurrection spell or item was used on it before it died out, he could be instantly brought back to life, but after a minute’s time, he would be teleported to his race’s home territory to resume play from there.
Leafa immediately banished the fallen foe from her mind and set her sights on the next target. The three remaining were unsure with their giant lances, their movements too slow for close combat. They repeatedly attempted awkward charges, but without any real momentum behind them, it was child’s play for Leafa to dart out of the way.
She glanced over again and saw that Recon was going for the finishing blow. He’d lost some HP of his own but not enough to need a healing spell. What had started as a five-on-two air raid was suddenly a very winnable fight. She swung her sword again, emboldened by their odds.
That was when another pillar of fire shot upward from the surface and caught Recon full in the chest.
“Aaaah!” he screamed, stopping in midair.
“No, don’t stop!” Leafa shouted, but the nearly dead salamander’s lance pierced Recon before he could react.
“I’m sorryyyy…” he wailed as green gusts of wind surrounded his body. The “End Flames” death animation swallowed him whole, and like the last man, he left only a small floating light behind.
Yes, he would come back to life elsewhere in the game in just a matter of seconds, but it never felt good to see a friend fall in battle. Leafa gritted her teeth, but she had no time to mourn his defeat. Another series of flames burst up from below, and she had to make a series of desperate turns to evade.
So the mage was the man at the lead!
If she had known this from the start, she would have followed his fall and finished him off when she had the chance, but it was too late to do anything about it now. The situation was dire.
But she wouldn’t give in. She’d struggle until the very last ugly moment, searching for that one blow to land, a philosophy and point of pride she’d earned through years of training as a swordsman.
Two other salamanders who had recovered thanks to the distraction of the magic from below launched another long-range charge.
“Do your worst!” Leafa dared, holding her sword high.
“Fmgh!”
After an endless fall, wailing helplessly all the way down, I finally landed somewhere unfamiliar. My cry was stopped short when I came to rest not on my feet but on my face. After several still seconds with my head buried deep in the grass, I slowly rolled over onto my back.
I lay still in the grass for a good long while, savoring the relief that the freefall was finally over.
It was night. Inside a deep forest.
A massive, gnarled tree that could have been centuries old set its impressive branches sprawling in all directions far over my head. Between the leaves I could see black sky littered with stars and a large, golden full moon directly overhead.
Insects buzzed nearby. On top of that, the low song of a night bird. Far-off howls of wild beasts. The scent of plant life tickled my nostrils. A slight breeze caressed my skin. All these sensations pressed in on my senses, terrifyingly vivid. It felt more real than real life—the signature of a virtual world.
I’d been skeptical of Agil’s claim, but upon seeing it for myself, I had to admit that the quality of modeling in ALO was in no way inferior to SAO’s. Any potential disbelief that someone could create something so incredible in just a year of development was swept away by the sheer volume of information assaulting my senses.
“Well…here I am again,” I muttered to myself, eyes closed. Just two months after I was released from my old prison and swore I’d never do this again, I was back in a full-dive VR world. Didn’t you learn your lesson last time? a voice in my head accused, and I grimaced wryly.
But this wasn’t like the other game. Losing all of my HP wouldn’t cause the real me to die, and I could leave at any time…With a start, I realized the path of dark memories that was leading me down.
What was the deal with that strange display error and sudden teleportation? What was I doing in this particular spot? The navigator had said each player would start in his or her chosen race’s home city. But this looked like the wilderness.
“Th-this can’t be what I think it is…”
Ch
eek twitching, I lifted my right hand and made a swiping motion with my index and middle fingers, but nothing happened. I tried it a few more times, a cold sweat running down my back, then remembered the tutorial voice saying that menu call-up and the flight controller were used with the left hand.
I tried again with my left this time, and a glowing menu popped up with a pleasing chime. It was virtually the same as the one in SAO. I stared at the buttons listed on the right side.
“Ah, here it is…”
Right at the bottom was a gleaming button labeled LOG OUT. I pressed it just as a test, and a warning message appeared saying that I couldn’t log out immediately while in the wilderness, followed by a confirmation prompt.
I sighed in relief, put a hand on the grass, and lifted myself up.
Upon closer examination, I seemed to be smack in the middle of a vast forest. Massive trees towered endlessly in every direction without a light in sight. I still had no idea why I’d landed here of all places, so I decided to check my game map. Just as I was about to press the button, I stopped abruptly.
“Wha…?!” I exclaimed.
At the top of the window was the name “Kirito” and my chosen race of “Spriggan.” Below that were my numerical hit points and mana points, reading 400 and 80 respectively—clearly starting values, nothing remarkable.
What startled me was the skill data beneath that. I hadn’t chosen anything yet, and I figured that section would be blank, but there were already eight different fields there. They could have been spriggan starter skills, but if that was the case, there seemed to be too many. I touched the list to call up the skill window and examine the details.
The variety was random—from battle skills like One-Handed Swords, Martial Arts, Weapon Defense, to lifestyle skills like Fishing—but the values were extreme. Most of them were leveled to the nine hundreds, and some were at an even thousand with a sign denoting they’d been mastered. MMORPG skills were designed to take an unfathomable amount of time to master, and it was unheard of for them to be maxed out in a new character.
Something was clearly bugged. First that inexplicable teleportation, now this. Maybe the servers were unstable.
“Is there something wrong with this game? I wonder if there’s a GM support option…”
I was about to flip through the game’s options when something familiar tugged at my brain. I turned back to the skill list. I recognized those proficiency values. One-Sword Skills, 1,000…Martial Arts, 991…Fishing, 643…
It hit me like lightning, so fast it made me gasp.
No wonder I knew these numbers. They were the exact same values I’d earned over two years of constant use in the world of Sword Art Online. Some of them were missing, like Dual Blades—likely because they didn’t exist in the world of ALO. In essence, the numbers that stared out at me were the final stats of Kirito the Swordsman as he’d existed in the last moments of the floating castle Aincrad.
My mind roiled. This was impossible. It was an entirely different game run by an entirely different company. Did my save data somehow transfer over? Or, even more unbelievable…
“Am I actually inside SAO?” The words tumbled from my mouth as I sat in the grass.
It took several dozen seconds before I could recover my thoughts. Shaking my head, I forced my brain back into gear and looked at the menu again.
Whatever was happening, I needed more information than what I had now. I checked my inventory this time.
“Oh, geez…”
This time I was greeted by line after line of corrupted text. Random Chinese characters, numbers, and letters were jumbled together in unintelligible strings.
Most likely, this was what remained of my last items in Aincrad. Somehow, I had the old Kirito’s data with me.
“Hey…in that case…”
I was struck by a sudden idea.
If my items were still here, that included something extremely valuable to me. I pored over the item text, using my finger to scroll through the menu.
“Please, please carry over…”
The garbled text sped past at high speed. My heart was racing in my chest, clanging like an alarm bell.
“…!”
My fingers stopped of their own accord. Just below them, glowing in a soft lime green, was a string of text reading MHCP001.
I forgot to breathe. With a trembling finger, I traced that name. The item was selected and the color inverted. I dragged the item over to the EJECT button.
A white light arose from the surface of the window and quickly concentrated into a tiny object: a colorless, transparent, tear-shaped crystal. There was a softly pulsing glow inside of it.
I carefully cupped the gem with both hands and lifted it up. There was a slight warmth to it. Just that little detail threatened to bring moisture to my eyes.
Please, God, I prayed, tapping the crystal twice with my index finger. Instantly, light exploded in my hands.
“Wha—?”
I stumbled backward. The glowing crystal hovered in the air about six feet off the ground, growing brighter by the second. It shone so powerfully that the trees around me appeared to be white, and the moon above was dim in comparison.
As I watched, wide-eyed, the center of the pulsing vortex of light began to take form. The contours became clearer, and color appeared. I could see long black hair flowing in all directions. A pure white one-piece dress. Slender limbs. A young girl, eyes closed and arms crossed over her chest, gently descended toward the ground, glowing as if she were a personification of light itself.
The explosion disappeared as quickly as it happened, and the girl came to a stop to hover just off the ground. Her long eyelashes trembled and slowly rose as she opened her eyes. Within moments, eyes as deep as the night sky above stared directly into mine.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t blink.
Her light pink lips slowly cracked into a smile that could only be described as angelic. Emboldened by this response, I finally found my voice.
“Hey, Yui…remember me?”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I looked down at myself with a start. My appearance was completely different from the last time she’d seen me. I had no mirror to check for myself, but my clothes and facial features had to be entirely different than before.
But my fear was unfounded. Yui’s mouth opened, and her familiar bell-like voice rang out.
“Finally, we meet again, Papa.”
Tears glimmering in her eyes, she spread her arms wide and jumped to embrace me.
“Papa…Papa!”
She cried it out over and over, slinging her fragile arms around my neck and nuzzling me with her cheek. I held her small body tight. I could feel a sob leak out of my throat.
Yui. The girl I’d met in the old Sword Art Online world and lived with for just three days before she vanished. It was a short time in the grand scheme of things, but those precious memories were forever burned into my mind. They were the only moments in that long, painful battle in Aincrad that I could honestly say that I was happy.
I don’t know how long I stood there holding Yui, feeling a painful sweetness tinged with nostalgia. Miracles were real. I could surely see Asuna again somehow. We could go back to the life we had.
It was the first time I was sure of it since I’d come back to the real world.
“So what the heck is going on here?”
I’d found a stump to sit on, in a corner of the clearing that I’d landed in just a few minutes earlier. Yui was perched cradled on my lap, and I was resisting the impulse to ask her immediately about Asuna.
Yui stopped rubbing her cheek against my chest in sheer bliss long enough to give me a blank look.
“…?”
“We’re not actually inside SAO, right…?”
I gave her a brief explanation of what had happened since she disappeared. How I compressed Yui and saved her as client-side data before the server could delete her entirely. How we beat the game and Ainc
rad was destroyed. How this was a new world, Alfheim, and yet the old Kirito’s data was here. The only thing I couldn’t put into words was that Asuna still hadn’t woken up yet.
“Give me just a moment.” Yui shut her eyes, tilting her head slightly as though listening for a voice I couldn’t hear.
“I believe this world,” she said, her eyes popping open and looking into mine, “is a copy of Sword Art Online’s server.”
“Copy?”
“Yes. The core program and graphics system are entirely identical. That should be clear from the fact that I’m able to exist in this form. But the Cardinal system’s version number is a bit out of date for some reason. Plus the game component resting on top of all that is completely different.”
“Hmm…”
I thought hard.
ALfheim Online had been released twelve months after the SAO Incident and not long at all after Argus was shuttered and RCT took over management of its assets. If RCT had absorbed Argus’s technological property, it was quite possible for them to essentially re-skin it into a new VRMMO. As long as they hooked everything into the simulation/feedback engine that was the core of the game experience, the development costs would be a fraction of what they might have been if it were created from scratch. It perfectly explained why I thought the world of this game was just as detailed as Sword Art Online’s.
So ALO was running off an altered copy of SAO’s system. That made sense. But…
“Why would my personal data be here in ALO?”
“Let me take a look at your data first, Papa.” She closed her eyes again. “Yes, that settles it. This is your exact same character data from SAO. The formatting is almost entirely the same, so it just overwrote your skill data with the old information. Hit points and mana points are derived from a different equation this time, so they weren’t carried over. It seems your items are all corrupted, though. We should get rid of them before you get caught by the error detection protocol.”
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