Sword Art Online 01.

Aincrad.

Reki Kawahara.

Prologue.

A huge castle made of stone and steel floating in an endless sky.

That was all this world was.

It took a varied group of craftsmen one month to survey the place; the diameter of the base floor was about 10 kilometers-large enough that the entirety of Setagaya-ku would fit on it. Above, there were 100 floors stacked directly on top of each other; its sheer size was unbelievable. It was impossible to even guess how much data it consisted of.

Inside, there were a couple of large cities and countless small towns and villages, forests and plains, even lakes. Only one stairway linked each floor to another, and the stairways were in dungeons where large numbers of monsters roamed, so discovering and getting through was no easy matter. However, once someone broke through and arrived at a city in the higher floor, the "Teleport Gates" there and in every city in the lower floors would connect, making it possible for anyone to move freely through these levels.

Under these conditions, the huge castle had been steadily conquered over two years. The current front line is the 74th floor.

The name of the castle was "Aincrad", a world of battles with swords that continued floating and had engulfed approximately six thousand people. Otherwise known as...

"Sword Art Online"

Chapter 1.

A grey sword cut my shoulder.

The thin line at the top left corner of my field of vision shrank slightly. At the same time a cold hand pa.s.sed over my heart.

The blue line-called the "HP bar"-is a visual rendering of my life force. There was still a little over 80 percent left. No, that phrase isn't appropriate enough. Right now, I was about 20 percent closer to death.

I dashed backwards before the enemy's sword even began its attacking motion.

"Haaa..."

I forced a huge breath to steady myself. The "body" in this world didn't need oxygen; but the body on the other side, or rather the body lying down in the real world, would be breathing heavily. My limp hands would be soaked with sweat, and my heartbeat would be off the charts.

Of course.

Even if everything I see right now is nothing more than a rendering of a 3D virtual reality, and the bar being reduced was nothing more than a bunch of numbers that showed my hit points, the fact that I was fighting for my life didn't change.

When you think about it like that, this fight was extremely unfair. That's because the "enemy" in front of me-a humanoid with dully shining arms covered in dark green scales and a lizard's head and tail-was not a human, nor was it really alive. It was a digital lump that the system would replace however many times it was killed.

-No.

The AI that controlled the lizardman was studying my movements and enhancing its ability to respond to them with every second that pa.s.sed. However, the moment that this unit was destroyed, the data was reset and wasn't pa.s.sed on to the unit that would be regenerated in this area.

So in a sense, this lizardman was also alive, a single being unique to this world.

"... right?"

There was no way that it would have understood the word that I had muttered to myself, but the lizardman (a level 82 monster called "Lizardman Lord") hissed and smiled, showing the sharp fangs that protruded from its long jaw.

It's reality. Everything in this world is real. There's no virtual reality or fakery of any kind.

I shifted the one-handed long sword in my right hand to waist-height and watched the enemy.

The lizardman moved the buckler in his left hand forward and drew back the scimitar to his right.

A chill breeze blew into the shadowed dungeon and the flame of the torch shook. The wet floor softly reflected the flickering torch-light.

"Kraaah!!"

With a tremendous scream, the lizardman leapt. The scimitar drew a sharp arc as it flew towards me. A blinding orange light lit its trajectory; a high-cla.s.s one-hit sword skill of the curved sword "Fell Crescent". It was a formidable charge-type sword skill that covered a distance of 4 meters in 0.4 seconds.

But, I was already expecting the attack.

I had slowly increased the distance in order to induce the AI to create this situation. I closed in on the lizardman, my mind registering the burning smell that the scimitar left behind as it sliced through the air centimeters in front of my nose.

"... ha!"

With a short shout, I swung my sword horizontally. The sword, now covered in sky-blue light, cut through the thinly protected stomach and bright red light scattered instead of blood. There was a low scream.

However, my sword didn't stop. The system a.s.sisted me through the programmed movements and chained the next slash with a speed that would normally have been impossible.

This is the most important element in battles in this world, "Sword Skill".

The sword sped off right from left and cut into the lizardman's chest. In this state, I spun my body in a full circle and the third strike stuck the enemy more deeply than before.

"Raarrgh!"

As soon as the lizardman recovered from being stunned briefly because it failed to hit with a big skill, it screamed with rage or perhaps fear, and raised its scimitar high in the air.

But my chain had not ended. The sword that had been swinging right suddenly sprang, as if forced by a spring, left and up and hit its heart-a critical point.

The sky-blue rhombus drawn by my four consecutive hits flashed then scattered; a horizontal, consecutive 4-hit skill, "Horizontal Square".

The clear light shone strongly in the dungeon and then faded. At the same time, the HP bar above the Lizardman's head disappeared without even a single dot left.

The huge body fell, leaving a long trail, then suddenly stopped awkwardly- With a sound similar to breaking gla.s.s, it broke down into infinite polygons and disappeared.

This is the "Death" of this world. It is instantaneous and short, a perfect destruction, not leaving even a single trace.

I glanced at the virtual experience points and drop items I received, appearing in a purple font in the center of my vision, and swung my sword right and left before sheathing it in the scabbard on my back. I backed away a few steps and slid slowly down with my back against the dungeon wall.

I spat out the breath I was holding and closed my eyes. My temple started throbbing, perhaps from the fatigue from the long fight. I shook my head a couple of times to get rid of the pain and opened my eyes.

The shining clock at the bottom right of my field of vision showed that it was already past 3PM. I should get out of the labyrinth or I won't make it to the city before dark.

"... should I get started?"

There was n.o.body here to listen, but I just spoke and got up slowly.

I was done with making progress for the day. I somehow escaped the hand of death again today. But after a brief rest, tomorrow will come with more battles. When fighting battles without a 100% chance of victory, however many safety nets you prepare, there's going to be a day when you fall out of lady luck's favor.

The problem is whether this game will be "cleared" or not before I draw the ace of spades.

If you value your life above all else, staying in a village and waiting for somebody else to clear the game is the wisest route to take. But I go to the front lines every day solo. Am I just simply an addict of VRMMO who keeps increasing his stats through countless battles, or- Am I an idiot who insolently believes that he can win the freedom of everyone in this world with his sword?

As I started walking towards the labyrinth entrance with a slight smile of self-scorn, I thought back to that day.

Two years ago.

The moment that everything ended and began.

Chapter 2.

"Ahh... ha... uwahh!"

The sword swinging to these strange shouts swished around, cutting nothing but air.

Right afterwards, the blue boar (which moved surprisingly quick considering its bulk) charged fiercely at its a.s.sailant. I burst into laughter, watching him fly through the air and roll on the hill after getting hit by the boar's flat nose.

"Hahaha... not like that. The first movement is important, Klein."

"Argh... that b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

The complaining a.s.sailant, a party member called Klein, got up and glanced at me while answering plaintively.

"But Kirito, even if you say that... I can't do anything about the fact that it's moving."

I met this person, who had reddish hair held up by a bandana and simple leather armor worn over his thin body, a few hours ago. If he had revealed his real name, it would have been hard to omit the honorifics, but his name (Klein) and mine (Kirito) were both names we had made up for our characters. Putting -san or -kun at the end of them would sound comical more than anything.

The legs of the person in question started shaking.

"Seems like he's a little dizzy."

I picked up a pebble from the undergrowth at my feet and raised it above my shoulder. As soon as the system detected the first motion of a sword skill, the pebble started giving off a slight green light.

After that, my left hand almost moved by itself and the pebble went flying, drawing a straight line of light and hitting the boar between its eyebrows. Ggiik! The boar squealed in fury and turned towards me.

"Of course they move, they're not training dummies. But if you start the right motion, the system will put your sword skill into motion and hit the target for you."

"Motion... motion..."

While muttering this like some spell, Klein raised the cutla.s.s that he held in his right hand.

Although the blue boar, officially named "Frenzy Boar", was a level one monster, Klein had lost almost half of his HP from being hit by counterattacks due to his wild swings. Well, even if he died he'd just resp.a.w.n at the "Starting City" near here, but coming all the way out to this hunting ground again was somewhat annoying.

It seemed like there was one move left before the fight reached its conclusion.

I c.o.c.ked my head as I blocked the boar's charge with the sword in my right hand.

"Hmm, how should I explain... It's not like one, two, three, then strike. But more like gathering a bit of energy and then, as soon as you feel the skill start, it goes BAM and you feel it hit the monster..."

"Bam, eh?"

Klein's roughly handsome face grimaced itself into an unsightly image as he leveled his sword at his waist.

Inhale, exhale; after taking a deep breath, he lowered his stance and raised his sword as if he was going to shoulder it. This time, the system sensed the pose correctly and the arcing sword slowly started shining orange.

"Ha!"

With his low yell, he jumped off the ground with a movement that was completely different from the ones before.

Swish-! With this crisp sound, the sword drew its flame red trajectory through the air. The "Reaver", a basic skill of the one-handed curved sword, struck the boar right in its neck as it was about to charge and got rid of the rest of its HP, which (like Klein's) was about half full.

Guekk- it gave a pitiful cry and its large body shattered like gla.s.s and purple numbers appeared, showing how many virtual experience points I gained.

"Ye~~a~~h!"

Klein struck an over-blown pose of victory with a huge smile on his face and raised his left hand. I high-fived him and smiled again.

"Congrats on your first victory... but that boar-it's about as hard as slimes from other games."

"Eh, really? I thought it was some sort of semi-boss or something!"

"Not a chance."