Sword Art Online Progressive - Volume 01

by Chapter 1 + Intermission

  If I won this raise and counter battle, then I would learn the opponent's name, but I would end up losing a substantial amount of money in this «sword transaction» at a fearful rate as a result.

  No matter how you think about it, that would be idiotic to the extreme.

  "……Good grief, you can’t just sell information, since even when you're not selling something, it's a business, huh…that really is one impressive merchant's spirit……"

  While I complained, Argo's whiskered cheeks relaxed into a snicker.

  "That's the true joy of this business! When I sell someone information, at that instant the story that «Someone bought such and such information» is born."

  It was probably an absolute taboo for people like lawyers in the real world to reveal a customer’s name, but such a rule didn’t exist for the rat whose motto was «Sell all the information that can be sold». The people who became her clients had to be prepared from the beginning for their names to sold, but since her abilities as an informant was first-class, one couldn’t complain about it.

  "…Please tell me when a female player wants my personal information: I'll buy her information."

  As I said that while sighing, Argo once again gave a jolly laugh, but then she changed her expression.

  "Then, I will tell the client the offer was rejected this time as well.

  Also, that this deal is impossible too. See you then, Ki-bou."

  Waving her hand, she turned around and, with a nimbleness that befitted her «Rat» nickname, left the alley. After watching her curly auburn hair disappear into the crowd in an instant, I idly thought, 'That person surely won't die'.

  After being trapped in death game SAO for a month, I have learned a few things.

  Just what was it that separated life and death among players?

  There existed an infinite number of minute factors to this—like the number of potions you have in stock, or when it’s time to quit dungeon exploring—but I think that the key factor existed in the center of those details was most likely whether one had their «personal core» that they unconditionally believed in or not. To put it another way, it was their «ultimate weapon» that they depend on in order to survive.

  In Argo's case, it was probably «Information». Dangerous monster locations or, conversely, the most efficient hunting locations—this person knew them all. Her belief in knowledge created a sense of peace within her, and increased her chances of surviving.

  So then, for me, Kirito’s «Core» was namely the sword on my back.

  To be precise, it was that certain mental state that occurred when my body and sword completely became one. I had not fully been in that zone many times, but the single thought I want to make that world my own someday, and I will not die before then had kept me alive till now.

  The reason Anneal Blade's enhancement was Sharpness +3 and Durability +3, while ignoring Quickness and Accuracy, was because the former two were merely simple number spec-ups, while the latter were system-assisted enhancements that changed the feel of a sword swing.

  —However, then that means.

  That rapier user I met today at the front lines of the dungeon.

  What was her «Core»?

  I did move her unconscious body outside the dungeon (I can't really say how I did it myself), but, on the other hand, even had I not been there, the moment that the next kobold appeared, she would have unconsciously stood up and used that ultra-high speed «Linear» like a shooting star to kill the enemy…I couldn’t help but think that.

  Just what on earth drove her to fight such a bloodcurdling battle, and how had she managed to survive until now? It was probably a «Strength» I didn't know about.

  "……I should have paid Argo the 500 col…"

  Murmuring with a small shake of my head, I then looked up at the sky.

  The windmill towers that were the symbol of the town of Tolbana had their white-painted outer walls slightly tinged orange from the afternoon light. The time should be a bit after 3 PM. To prepare for the approaching lengthy boss strategy conference, I should go fill my stomach somewhere.

  The meeting starting at 4pm would be, without a doubt, stormy.

  The reason was that today, one type of player that had remained hidden in the world of SAO would show up in front of the numerous normal players for the first time. That's right—«New Players» and «Experienced Beta Testers», a gap that was hard to fill lay between them…

  For «Argo the Rat», who sold anything that could be sold, there was only one type of information that she would never make a transaction on. That is, the identities of the original beta testers.

  No, it wasn’t just Argo. Fellow original beta testers, despite having different faces from before, may have had hunches about their respective identities based on each other’s names or tones, but they would never come into contact without each other. In fact, it was like that just now as well. Argo and I were both certain of each other's identity as a beta tester, but that was the only topic we circumvented in our conversations, no matter how many light-years we had to travel to do so.

  The reason was simple. When a beta testers’ identity was discovered, his life could be at stake.

  Not from the danger of being killed by monsters in some dungeon.

  But while walking around outside safe areas, New Players could «Execute» you. Because they believed that all the responsibility for the deaths of no less than 2000 people in the first month belonged to the original beta testers.

  And I could not completely deny this blame.

  4

  Asuna's selection of food for the past three (or was it four) days consisted of the cheapest black bread from an NPC baker, and a bottle of water that could be filled as many times as you liked from the fountains that were scattered throughout town.

  Even in the real world, she hadn’t enjoyed eating that much, but the food and drink in this virtual world was so bland that it was beyond description. No matter how much you gorged yourself on luxurious food, not even a single morsel would reach your real body. She thought it would be better if the food system and the sensations of hunger and satiety did not exist at all, but, when your stomach was empty three times a day at mealtimes, the hunger would not dissipate until you had eaten some virtual food.

  Even so, she had recently become able to cut off this fake hunger by using willpower only when she went into the dungeon, but after returning to town, she had to eat. She bought the cheapest items on the menu as an act of minimal resistance, but she found it strangely annoying that even a dry and coarse piece of black bread seemed delicious in and of itself as she tore it apart and chewed it little by little.

  At the center of the town of Tolbana, Asuna sat on a simple wood bench in the corner of an open fountain space and continued to move her mouth to chew while keeping her hood low over her eyes. She had finally finished half of the piece of bread, which was comparatively big for a price of 1 col, when— "That bread looks pretty delicious."

  That familiar voice was coming from her right. She stopped her hand that was just about to tear off a piece of the bread, and threw a sharp glance.

  The person who stood there was the man she had just left at the town entrance a few minutes ago. The black-haired and grey-coated one-handed swordsman.

  A troublesome person that had used some method earlier to move her outside after she had fainted inside the depths of a dungeon, and had forcibly reconnected her path which should have been severed then.

  The moment she realized that, her cheeks grew hot. Even though she had said her ambition was to die, he was seeing her here, shamelessly eating a meal as soon as she came back alive. A strong embarrassment ran through her entire body, and she did not know what to do at that moment.

  As she remained awkwardly stiffened like that while holding the half-moon shaped black bread in both hands, the man coughed slightly, and then said in a low whisper.

  "May I sit next to you?"

  Normally, she would have left the bench
without a word, and moved away without turning back in this kind of situation.

  However, right now, she was assailed by a stunned confusion she rarely experienced in this world, leaving her unable to react.

  Perhaps interpreting Asuna's stiffness as a sign of approval, the man sat down at the furthest distance possible away from her on the right side of the bench, and began searching through his coat pocket. What he took out was a round, black-colored object—a black bread worth 1 col.

  At that instant, Asuna momentarily forgot about her embarrassment and confusion, and instead looked at the man in amazement.

  Judging by his ability to be able to go that deep into the dungeon and the grade of the equipment all over his body, this swordsman should easily earned enough money to choose from a decent course menu at a restaurant. In that case, he was either a super thrifty person, or— "…You seriously find it delicious, don't you?”

  Without realizing it, she had asked the question aloud in a small voice. Hearing this, the man raised his eyebrow outrageously, and then nodded deeply.

  "Of course. Since coming to this town, I eat it every day…Well, I add a bit of a twist."

  "A twist…?"

  Not understanding his meaning, she shook her head under the hood. Instead of answering, the swordsman put his hand in the pocket opposite from the one earlier, and took out a small unglazed pot. He put it on the center of the bench, and said.

  "Try using this on your bread."

  The phrase 'use it on the bread' momentarily confused her, but she then realized it was a net game phrase, similar to «Use the key on the door» or «Use the bottle on the fountain». She hesitantly extended her right hand, and tapped the pot lid with her finger.

  From the pop-up menu which appeared, she selected «Use», and then her fingertip started to glow with a faint purple light. In this state which was called «Target Selection Mode», she then touched the half-eaten black bread in her left hand.

  Then, with a small sound effect, one side of the bread was smeared white. The thing that had been fully, or rather, thickly applied to it was, no matter how you looked at it— "…Cream? Where did you get such a thing…?"

  "This is the quest reward from «Cows of the Counterattack» that I accepted one village back. Though, not many people do it, since it takes some time to clear."

  After giving this answer with a serious face, the swordsman also «Used the pot on his bread» with a practiced gesture. Then, with its contents presumably used up, the pot shattered with a small sound and light effect.

  The swordsman opened his mouth incredibly wide and bit into the bread that now similarly had a heap of cream applied to it.

  Hearing the sound of his chewing, Asuna's own stomach felt not the unpleasant pain that she had been experiencing for quite some time, but instead the onslaught of a healthy hunger.

  She hesitantly bit into the cream-covered black bread still held in her left hand.

  At that moment, the taste of the normally dry and coarse bread spread inside her mouth as if it had transformed into a certain country-style cake with a heavy texture. The cream was sweet and smooth, along with a refreshingly yogurt-like sour taste. As she was struck by a feeling of fulfillment that numbed even the insides of her cheeks, Asuna dreamily stuffed the bread into her mouth with two, three bites.

  When she suddenly came back to her senses, the food item that had been in her hands had completely disappeared without literally leaving even a single morsel. When she looked beside her with a start, she seemed to have finished two seconds or so before the swordsman. Again, a strong embarrassment rose intensely within her and she wanted to escape from this place, but having been treated to food, it would have been very bad manners.

  After taking repeated several breaths and somehow calming herself down, Asuna said in a vanishingly faint voice.

  "……Thank you for the food."

  "You're welcome."

  Having finished his own meal, the swordsman brushed off his leather glove-covered hands, and then continued.

  "The cow quest I mentioned earlier. If you want to do it I can give you some tips. If you do it efficiently, you can finish it in two hours."

  "………"

  To be honest, her heart was moved. With that yogurt cream, even the 1 col black bread could become a magnificent feast. It was a false fulfillment from the taste recreation engine, but she wanted taste it once more…no, to eat it every day if possible, is what Asuna couldn’t help but think.

  However—

  Asuna lowered her eyes, and shook her head gently beneath her hood.

  "…It's okay. I did not come this far to this town just to eat delicious things."

  "Hmm. Then, for what purpose?"

  The swordsman's voice, while it could not be said to be an especially beautiful voice, did not have a single part of it that was unpleasant to the ear, and it had the cadence like that of a boy somehow. Maybe because of that, Asuna spoke without being conscious of it the thing deep inside her heart that she had spoken of to no one since coming to this world.

  "It’s to…prove that I exist. Instead of locking myself in a room of a town inn like I did at the beginning and slowly rotting away, I want to be myself up to the last moment. Even if I lose to a monster and die, I don't want to lose to this game…to this world.

  No matter what."

  Asuna—Yuuki Asuna's 15 years of life had been a series of battles.

  Beginning with her kindergarten entrance exam, she had had an endless number of challenges big and small imposed on her one after another, and she had overcome them all. It was set so that even one failure would make her a worthless person, so she continued to brush aside that heavy pressure.

  A new challenge with the name of «Sword Art Online» had come upon her at the end of these 15 years of fighting, but she probably could not beat this challenge.

  With rules and a culture that were far too unknown and far too different, this was a type of battle that a single person's strength could not do anything about.

  This was the required winning condition: 'Reach the top of the 100 floor floating castle, and beat the final enemy.' However, one month after the game started, one-fifth of the players had already fallen, and furthermore, most of them were experienced veterans that were confident in their abilities. The remaining fighting force was too small, and the distance that blocked their way was too long…

  Asuna said all that in intermittent bits, as if the faucet of her heart had been loosened and drops were slowly dripping down. As she had given her fragmentary monologue that probably didn’t have any consistency, the black-haired swordsman had listened in silence, but—eventually Asuna's voice was cut off by the evening breeze, and then he quietly whispered one small word.

  "……Sorry."

  After a few seconds, Asuna wondered, 'Why would he say that?'

  She met this swordsman for the first time today, so there should be no reason for him to apologize. When she glanced at the person beside her from beneath her hood, the grey-coated man that was sitting lightly on the bench rested both elbows on his knees and hung his head down. His lips moved slightly, and she heard his voice again.

  "Sorry…—what brought about this current situation…or, to put it another way, what pushed you this far, is in a sense my……"

  However, she could not hear the rest of what he said. Because the wind-powered clock bell of the particularly huge windmill that stood tall at the center of the town rang loudly.

  It was 4 PM in the afternoon. The time the «Meeting» started.

  Looking around, Asuna saw that players had gathered at the nearby fountain space for some time now without her being aware of it.

  "…Let's go. It's the conference you invited me to."

  Asuna remarked that, and stood up. The swordsman also nodded, and slowly stood up. What had he been going to say—? She probably wouldn't talk to him again anyway, so it didn't matter.

  But in a corner within that thought, there was a feeling li
ke that of a small prickling thorn.

  ‘I want to know.’ ‘I don't want to know.’ Which of those feelings were stronger, even Asuna herself did not understand very well.

  5

  44 people.

  That was the total number of players gathered at Tolbana's fountain plaza.

  Compared to my predictions—or rather my expectations, all I could say was that this was far too low. In SAO, the maximum size of a party was 6 people, and by adding together 8 of those you could make a raid party with a total of 48 people. From my experience during the Beta-Test period, if we were going to try beating the Floor Boss with zero deaths, it would be difficult without at least two raid groups to switch between while fighting, but these numbers couldn't even fill up one full raid party.

  I sucked in a breath in order to sigh, but I lost my chance to breathe out.

  "…This many…"

  It was because the rapier user in a hooded cape whispered that from behind me to my left. I involuntarily turned around and asked.

  "Many. .? This number of people?"

  "Yes. Because…they gathered here for the first challenge against this floor's boss monster, right? Even though the chance of complete annihilation exists…"

  "……I see."

  I nodded, and then looked at the faces of the warriors gathered in groups of threes and fives around the plaza again.

  There were five or six players here whose names I knew, and vice versa. Additionally, there were around fifteen of these people who I had seen previously at the towns near the front line and in the dungeon.

  As for the remaining 20-plus people, this was the first time I saw most of their faces. Of course, the male-to-female ratio was extremely skewed. The only female player that I could see at a quick glance was the rapier user, but that couldn’t be discerned just by looking because of the hood she wore low over their eyes, so the other people here besides me should be thinking that everyone here was male. «Argo the Rat» was also here leaning against a high wall on the other side of the plaza, but she would not be participating in the Boss-capture operation.