Sword Art Online - Volume 9 - Alicization Beginning

by Reki Kawahara

  My memories stopped at that point.

  I couldn’t recall it. How did Asuna reply? How did I say farewell and return to the station? What time did I come back home, what time did I go to bed? I couldn’t recall any of those.

  As I was slightly amazed, I desperately tried to pull out more memories.

  However, Asuna’s smile just faded away like it was blurred in the water, the scene after that didn’t come out no matter how hard I tried to recall it. I frowned as I closed my eyes, and hastily dug up the gloomy grey vacuum.

  I was suffocating as if I was going mad.

  Those were just two images that came to mind, like small bubbles. Unintentionally, I inhaled the sweet air deeply into my chest. And I strongly sensed my dry throat, which I had forgotten about until now.

  There is no doubt about it, yesterday evening I was definitely at Miyasaka town in Setagaya ward. Then how did I end up sleeping in the middle of a forest I don’t know?

  No, was it really yesterday? The breeze which is brushing against my skin feels cool and pleasant. This forest doesn’t have the slightest bit of the humidity at the end of June. This time, a genuine fear ran through my back.

  The «Yesterday’s memory», which I’m desperately clinging onto as if it were a small float floating in the middle of a stormy sea, did it really happen? Am I… really who I think I am……?

  After caressing my face and pulling at my hair several times, I lowered my hands and looked at its details. I calmed down slightly as they looked just like what I had in my memories, there was a mole at the base of the right thumb, the back of the left middle finger had a scar which I got during childhood.

  At that point, I finally noticed my strange appearance.

  Replacing my usual pajamas wasn’t a T-shirt nor a school uniform, no, it wasn’t even anything I owned. On the contrary, no matter how I looked at it, I didn’t think it was ready-made clothes available in the market.

  The tunic was dyed in a pale blue, it was either a rough cotton or flax short sleeved shirt. Its texture was unsteady, which gave a coarse feeling. The thread sewed on the cuffs seemed to be hand-sewn rather than machine sewed. There was no collar, the V shape cut on the chest was tied with a light brown cord. As I looked at the cord held by my fingers, I could see that it wasn’t made of braided fiber, but seemed to be of finely cut leather.

  The trousers also used the same material, but they were in beige as they seemed to be unbleached. There was no pocket, the leather belt which tied my waist wasn’t fastened with a metal buckle, but a long and narrow wooden button. The shoes were also hand-sewn leather, several tacks were struck to the cleats of thick leather shoe sole.

  I had never seen such clothes and shoes before. ——In the real world, that was.

  “……What.”

  I relaxed my shoulders, as I muttered with a light sigh.

  Even though they were completely different, at the same time, they were the garments that looked familiar. From Europe during the Middle Ages, or it could be said from fantasy, these were what were the so-called tunic, cotton pants, and leather shoes. This place wasn’t reality but a fantasy world, or a virtual world I was familiar with.

  “What……”

  I said again as I tilted my head.

  This means I was sleeping while FullDiving? But when and what game did I log in to? Why can’t I remember anything?

  Anyway, I’ll know after I logged out, as I thought that, I waved my right hand.

  After a several seconds, the window wouldn’t open, so this time I waved my left hand. The result was the same.

  As I listened to the uninterrupted sound of little birds twittering and leaves rubbing against each other, I recklessly tried to shake off a discomfort feeling which was creeping up from my waist.

  This place is a virtual world. It should be. But —— at least it isn’t Alfheim I’m familiar with. Before that, it isn’t even the standard VR world which is created by The Seed.

  But didn’t I just confirm the mole and scar I have in the real world? A VR game which could precisely reproduce such things, as far as I know, doesn’t exist.

  “Command. ……Log out.”

  I pronounced it along with a faint glimmer of hope, but there was no response. As I sat cross-legged, I looked at my hand again.

  There were swirled fingerprints on the tip of my fingers. There were wrinkles at the joints. The fine soft hairs grew thinly. The grains of cold sweat had been oozing out for a while now.

  I wiped them off using my tunic, and checked the details of the fabric again. The rough threads were knit into the cloth using an old method. The fluffy and very fine fiber was clearly visible on the surface.

  If this was a virtual world, the machine which created it would have a fearfully high performance. As I set my gaze on the grove of trees up ahead, I quickly tore a blade of grass with my right arm and held it in front of my eyes.

  The Seed’s standard VR world, which used «Detail Focusing» technique, wouldn’t be able to keep up with my sudden movement, a slight time lag would occur before I could see the fine detailed texture of the grass. However, from the thin running vein and the jagged edge, until the water droplet dripped off the slit, all were presented in ultra-fine detail the moment I stared at it.

  It means the objects which entered my vision is generated in real-time with a precision of millimeters. Then the capacity needed to store this single grass would be in several tens of megabytes. Is something like that really possible?

  I don’t want to pursue this anymore, I suppressed such thoughts within my mind as I pushed the grasses between my feet aside and started digging the ground using my right hand in place of a shovel.

  The damp black soil was surprisingly soft, the entangled small grassroots entered my eyes immediately. I saw a wriggling movement between the mesh of roots and gently picked it up with my fingertips.

  It was a small earthworm, about three centimeters long. The creature in luster green, which was pulled out from its safe haven, was struggling recklessly. Is this a new species? right as I thought that, it raised one end of the tip, which apparently was its head, and made a small Kyu— kyu— cry. While I was feeling dizzy, I returned it to the top of the dug up soil. I then looked at my right hand, my palm was covered in black dirt, the gaps of fingernails were full of the fine grains of soil.

  I was absentminded for several tens of seconds, then, while being reluctant, I came up with three hypotheses which could sufficiently explain the current situation.

  First, it is possible that this place is a virtual world created by an extension of the current FullDive technology. The situation in which I woke up in the middle of the forest, is a standard fantasy RPG starting scene.

  However, in that case, no matter what kind of supercomputer I know, none of them had enough capability to generate these ultra-fine detailed 3D objects. It could be said that I have lost part of my memories and the time in reality had already passed by several years, or several tens of years.

  Next, the possibility that this place could be somewhere in the real world. It means I am the subject of a crime, an illegal experiment, or a terrible prank, someone dressed me up in these clothes and threw me out in the forest somewhere —— from this weather it could be Hokkaidō, or perhaps somewhere on the southern hemisphere. However, I don’t think Japan has a species of metallic green earthworm which could cry ‘kyu kyu’, or even any country in the whole world.

  Then the last hypothesis, this place could possibly be a real different dimension, a different world, or perhaps an afterlife world. It is a familiar event which occurs in manga, novels, and anime. According to the dramaturgy of those, after this I would save a girl from monster’s attack, listen to village chief’s request to become the savior hero, and fight against the devil king. But there is no «Steel sword» at my waist.

  I held my belly as I was attacked by a sudden desire to burst out laughing, after I somehow managed to let it pass, I decided to exclude the third poss
ibility as out of the question as well. As I lost sight of the border between the reality and non-reality, I felt as if I was starting to lose my sanity as well.

  After all —— is this a virtual world? Or is it the real world?

  If it’s the former, no matter how super real the world is, it’s not difficult to confirm. I just have to climb to the top of a nearby tree and jump down head-first. If I was logged out, or resurrected at a save point in a temple somewhere, then it would be a virtual world.

  But if this is a real world, the worst result will come out from that experiment. In a novel I read long ago, a certain criminal organization, in order to film a real death game, abducted about ten people and left them to kill each other in an uninhabited wilderness. Even though such thing would be unthinkable of to happen in reality, but the same abnormal event that is the SAO incident had happened. If this is really a game set up on a stage in the real world, I don’t think commiting suicide right at the start is a good choice.

  “……If it’s something like that, they still haven’t done that yet……”

  I unconsciously said that out. At least Kayaba Akihito still carried out his minimal duty, explaining fine details at the start of the game.

  I looked up into sky through the treetops before speaking again,

  “Oi, GM-san! If you’re listening then reply me!!”

  However, no matter how long I waited, a huge face or a hooded human figure didn’t appear. At that point, I started checking the surrounding bushes again before searching through my clothes for something that could be a rule book, but I couldn’t find anything.

  Apparently, whoever threw me out in this place has no intention to respond to my call for help. This situation, if it’s not accidental then… but…

  As I listened to the birds’ carefree twittering, I recklessly thought about what to do after this point.

  If this is an accident in reality, I have a hunch that moving around carelessly isn’t a good idea. It could be possible that currently, a rescue team is already on its way.

  But, what is the reason that this kind of accident happened in the first place?

  If forcibly straining to get one, it could possibly be, trouble happened to the vehicle I was boarding during traveling —— be it a plane or a car, and I fell unconscious in this forest, the shock made me lose memories of the events that occurred before and after it. But that can’t explain these strange clothes, and there are no scratches on my body either.

  Or, an accident happened during my Dive in a virtual world, something like that is also possible. An obstacle occurred along the communication route and caused me to log into a world which was not originally connected. But in this case, there is no explanation for these high-detail objects.

  Also, if assuming that it is a situation designed by whoever’s intention. Then it would be better to think that as long as I didn’t take any action, the situation wouldn’t change.

  “Just which one is it……”

  Is this reality? Or is it VR world? There must be a method to identify it, I thought that as I muttered.

  There must be a way. A virtual world which approaches perfection until one couldn’t be able to distinguish from reality, although it is a commonly used phrase, I don’t think it is possible to recreate everything in the real world with a hundred percent precision.

  It was close to five minutes that I sat on the short grasses thinking about various things. However, I couldn’t find any feasible ideas for the current situation. If I had a microscope, I could search for the existence of microorganism on the ground, or if I had a plane, I could be able to fly to the edge of the surface. However, sadly, with only the hands and feet that I had, digging the ground was the best I could do.

  At a time like this, if it’s Asuna, she sure to have a way to identify this world which I didn’t think of, I let out a short sigh as I thought that. Or if it was her, she wouldn’t be sitting worrying like this, but quickly taking action.

  I bit my lips as a hopelessness struck me again.

  I was surprised that I was at this much loss just because it wasn’t possible to contact Asuna, but I also accepted this fact. As during this past two years, I discussed almost all my decisions with her. Now, without Asuna’s thinking circuit, my brain was like a CPU with half of its core disabled.

  It feels like only yesterday that I enjoyed talking with her at Egil’s shop for several hours. If I knew this would happen, I wouldn’t talk about RATH or STL, but about how to distinguish reality from the ultra-precise virtual wor——……

  “Ah……”

  I inadvertently raised my body. The ambient sound rapidly receded.

  So that is it, and I didn’t realize it until now.

  Didn’t I already know about it? The existence of something far beyond the FullDive machine, a technology that could be said to be able to create a VR world with a super-real quality. It means this world is……

  “Inside of Soul Translator……? Is this place… Underworld……?”

  There was no response to what I muttered as I unconsciously looked around my surroundings in confusion.

  The forest of gnarled old trees I could only think of as the real thing. The swaying grasses. The flying butterflies.

  “These are…… a man-made dream written directly into my Fluctlight……?”

  On the first day I started the part-time job at the venture company, «RATH»; the researcher and operator, Higa Takeru-shi, proudly explained to me the rough structure of STL and how real the world it could create was.

  And I realized by the Test Dive soon after, that his words weren’t an exaggeration at all —— however, what I saw at that time was just one room. Although the table, chair and various small things placed there were hard to distinguish from the real thing, the room itself couldn’t be called a «World».

  However, the size of the forest which surrounds me now, perhaps it would be several kilometers in reality. No, if the ridge of the mountain range that faintly floated beyond the trees was the real thing, then the size of this space would be at a level of several tens or several hundreds of kilometers.

  Trying to create this using the existing technology, even using all the storage available on the internet wouldn’t be enough to fit all the data required. Only the totally new technology…… such as the «Mnemonic Visual» of STL, not only a scene that was impossible in reality, but for this large amount of objects, I totally didn’t imagine it.

  Then, if my guess that this place was Underworld, the virtual world created by STL, was correct, it would be impossible to verify it no matter what action was used inside.

  That was because every object existed here, no, every ‘thing’ here were at the same level as the real thing in my consciousness. No matter how many grass I tore, the same information as if I did it in the real world would be given to my consciousness —— my Fluctlight, so it was not theoretically possible to verify that it was a virtual existence, absolutely.

  So, if STL is going for commercial use, a marker to help in identifying that it’s a virtual world is absolutely needed…… I stood up as I thought that.

  Although I still haven’t obtained solid proof, it’s better to think that this place is the Underworld. It means currently in the real world, I’m lying inside the STL experimental machine in RATH’s Roppongi development office, doing a two thousand yen per hour part-time job.

  “But…… isn’t it strange……?”

  After a brief moment of relief, I tilted my head again.

  The operator, Higa certainly said that in order to prevent the contamination to the test data, the real world memories of Kirigaya Kazuto would have to be blocked. But currently, what I can’t recall is just one day, from sending Asuna off until I go into STL at RATH the next day, it’s far from saying blocked.

  Also —— yes, since the final test is approaching, didn’t I decide to quit this part-time job to have time for studying? I don’t think I’m a person who easily breaks my promise with
Asuna after one day because of a good hourly wage.

  Moreover, from this situation, even though this is STL’s test Dive, it’s no doubt that some problem had occurred. I looked into the blue sky between the gap of treetops and shouted in a loud voice,

  “Higa-san, if you’re monitoring, stop the Dive for a moment! Looks like a problem has occurred!”

  I stood like that, waiting for more than ten seconds.

  However, the countless leaves continued swaying under the serene sunlight, the butterflies continued flapping their wings drowsily, there was no change to the scenery.

  “……Uu……perhaps, this is……”

  I groaned in a low voice to a certain possibility I suddenly realized.

  Perhaps I have agreed to this experiment —— is that the case?

  In other words, in order to obtain data about the action I would take if I was in a place where I couldn’t be sure if I was in reality or a virtual world, they blocked my memory right before the Dive and threw me into a super real different world created by STL.

  If that was the case, I felt like slapping my head who easily agreed to that evil experiment. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that it was shallow to think that I could effortlessly come up with an accurate and swift way to escape from this situation.

  I counted the percentage of possibilities which could sufficiently explain the current situation as I folded the fingers on my right hand.

  “Hmm…… the possibility of this being reality is… 3 percent. The present VR world… 7 percent. My agreement to test Dive in STL… 20 percent. A sudden accident during the Dive… 69.9999 percent……”

  In my mind, I added the final 0.0001 percent possibility that I had lost into a real different world. And that was the limit I could squeeze out of my little wisdom. In order to obtain more information, I would have to brave the dangers and try to contact other humans or game players or test Divers.

  So it was time to take action.