2

The massive moon hanging in the sky painted the deep forest blue, like the seafloor.

Nights in Alfheim were short, but it would be a while yet until dawn brought its light. The darkness of the forest was normally an eerie thing, but on the run, its concealment was a blessing.

Leafa looked into the starry sky from the shadows of an especially large tree. She couldn’t see any foreboding shapes crossing the sky for now. She whispered to her party companion as quietly as she could.

“Get ready. We’re going to fly as soon as our wings are recharged.”

“B-but I’m still dizzy…,” he whined.

“Are you still feeling sick? Oh, this is just sad…When are you going to get used to it, Recon?”

“I can’t help it if I’m afraid of flying…”

Leafa sighed in exasperation.

The boy named Recon, slumped at the foot of the tree, was a real-life friend of Leafa’s, and they’d started playing ALO—ALfheim Online—at the same time. Meaning that he’d had a year of experience with the game, just like her, and yet he still hadn’t conquered his flight sickness. In a game where midair battle skill was everything, his inability to handle more than one or two skirmishes at a time made him largely useless.

But Leafa didn’t really mind that part of Recon. If anything, she thought of him like a helpless little brother. His appearance fit his personality perfectly: a short, fragile body, yellow-green hair in a pageboy cut, long drooping ears, and a face that always seemed to be on the verge of tears. For a randomly generated character, his look was so similar to the real thing that the first time she saw him in-game, Leafa nearly laughed her head off.

Then again, according to Recon, Leafa’s appearance was fitting as well. She was on the larger side for a sylph, with distinctive eyes and brows.

She’d been hoping for a virtual body that might be described as “willowy,” but by all accounts, it was still an attractive character. That was a blessing that required considerable good fortune in this game—many players had sunk several years’ worth of monthly fees just on the character reroll cost until they got the look they wanted. So Leafa wasn’t about to complain.

Incidentally, avatar appearance had no bearing on performance in ALO, so Recon’s battles with dizziness were entirely an issue of his sense of balance.

Leafa reached out and grabbed the back of Recon’s chest armor, hauling him to his feet. His four wings were glimmering with pale green light, the game’s indication that his flight power had recovered.

“Okay, you’re good to go. Our next flight is taking us out of the forest.”

“Aww, we must have lost them already. Let’s take a break.”

“No! One of those salamanders had a really high Search skill, so they might have already found us while we were resting here. We can’t handle one more air raid just by ourselves. We need to rush back to our territory!”

“Oh, fine.” Recon pouted. He grasped at the air, and a translucent joystick appeared in his hand. It was ALO’s flight assistance controller, a short rod with a small ball on the end. He pulled the stick lightly toward himself, and the two pairs of wings on his back fluttered and glowed faintly.

Leafa beat her own wings a few times. Unlike Recon, she didn’t need the controller. She had already mastered the art of flying at will, the mark of a first-rate warrior in ALO.

“Let’s go!” she commanded, springing into the air. The wings on her back spread to their full width, pushing her upward through the branches toward that full moon. The wind whipped at her cheeks and fluttered her long ponytail.

In a few seconds, she was out in the open, flying above the forest. The land of Alfheim spread out as far as the eye could see. It was a feeling of endless liberation.

“Ahh.” She sighed with ecstasy as she rose to ever-greater heights. There was nothing else like this precise moment. It was an exultation that brought one to the verge of tears. Since time immemorial, mankind had dreamed of flying like the birds. Finally, in this virtual world, we had found our own wings.

She hated the system’s limits on flight. She wanted to experience it to her heart’s content, going as high and far as she dared. She would give anything for it.

That was a shared desire among every player in Alfheim. Whoever reached the legendary city atop the World Tree before the other races would be reborn as an alf, a true fairy—and all flight limits would be repealed. You would be the true ruler of the skies.

Leafa had no interest in powering up her character or earning rare loot. There was only one reason she kept playing the game.

She beat her wings powerfully once more, reaching for the golden moon so far out of her reach. The motes of light falling off her wings fell through the night sky, trailing green tails like tiny comets.

“L-Leafa, wait uuup.” The wheedling voice came from below, and she was brought back to reality. Leafa stopped ascending and looked down to see Recon struggling behind her, clutching his controller. Flight with the training stick was severely limited when it came to speed, and Recon stood no chance of keeping up if Leafa flew at her maximum speed.

“Come on, put your back into it!” she urged Recon, beckoning with both hands as she hovered, wings outspread. She scanned the surroundings and found the imposing landmark of the World Tree amid the night, using it to ascertain the direction of sylph territory.

Once Recon had finally reached her altitude, Leafa began gliding easily, matching his speed. He looked over, clearly worried.

“A-are you sure we aren’t a little too high?”

“The higher we are, the better it feels. Plus, if your wings get tired, you have plenty of time to glide.”

“Have I ever told you that you change when you’re flying?”

“Have you ever told me what?”

“N-never mind…”

They proceeded onward toward southwest Alfheim, where the sylphs held their own territory, playfully bickering all the while.

They’d been in a party of five today, hunting in a neutral-zone dungeon to the northeast of sylph land. Luckily, they didn’t have to contend with any other parties and hunted to their hearts’ content. But when they prepared to head for home laden with money and items, they were waylaid by a group of eight salamanders.

Warfare was permitted between races in ALO, but only a small minority of players practiced such banditry. Today’s adventure taking place on a weekday afternoon, they hadn’t expected to run across any large groups of roving enemies, which made the encounter all the more bitter.

After a pair of air battles on the run, three had fallen on either side, which left Leafa and Recon as the only sylph survivors. They’d made good use of the sylphs’ advantageous flying speed, however, and had managed to escape the salamanders’ pursuit. Now they were nearly within range of sylph territory. They needed to hide and wait for Recon to recover after the battle, but it seemed they were going to make it out safely. However, on an idle scan of the forest behind them, Leafa saw…

A brief flash of orange light at the foot of a dense cluster of particularly large trees.

“Look out, Recon!” she shouted, and peeled off downward to her left. In the next instant, three fiery shots burst out from the leaves below.

Their extra altitude was fortuitous, as they had just enough extra time to avoid the blazing projectiles. The night air charred around them.

But there was no time to relax. Five reddish shadows emerged out of the stretch of forest that had produced the fireballs, and they sped after Leafa and Recon.

“Ugh, would you just give up already?” she spat, peering to the northwest. She still couldn’t see the light of the giant wind tower that marked the center of sylph territory.

“Oh well, we’ll just have to fight!” She pulled a gently curved long blade from her waist.

“Not more of this!” Recon wailed, readying his dagger.

“There are five of them, so I don’t expect to win, but you’d better not just give up! I’ll try to draw their attention, so make sure you beat at least one of them.”

“I’ll try…”

“You ought to show me you can act heroic once in a while.” Leafa jabbed Recon’s shoulder, then readied herself to dive. She rounded herself up, did a loop for momentum, and folded in her wings at a sharp angle so that she dropped like a rock. She shot downward at the salamanders’ wedge formation with reckless abandon.

Leafa and her party were old hands who’d been playing ALO since the start, with considerable experience and equipment. The only reason they’d suffered such an ignoble defeat was not just the enemy’s number but the battle formation that the salamanders had recently begun employing. They sacrificed mobility by wearing heavy armor, and they used their weight as momentum for devastating charging lance attacks, over and over. The array of deadly horizontal spearheads flying forth was so overpowering that it was nearly impossible to use the sylphs’ natural agility in battle.

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…”

Cheek 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 Aincrad 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.”

“I see. Good idea.”

I ran my finger across the whole inventory to select all the corrupted items. Some of them were mementos of Aincrad packed with memories, but the situation called for cold pragmatism. Besides, I couldn’t possibly pick out and save individual items when their very names were illegible.

I summoned up my will and deleted them in one fell swoop, leaving only my starter equipment behind.

“But what about this skill data?”

“The system has no problem with it. They’re unnatural based on your playing time here, but you’ll probably be fine as long as a human GM doesn’t take a closer look.”

“Oh. Okay…I used to be a beater, now I’m just a cheater, I guess.”

No problem with my character being high-powered, though. I needed to climb this World Tree and find Asuna—I wasn’t looking for a rewarding gameplay experience.

Besides, looking closer at the skill window gave me the sense that a character’s numerical data didn’t tell the whole story in this game. There was no agility or strength stat like in SAO, and the gains to be made in HP and MP were slight at best. Raising weapon proficiency only unlocked more weapon types to use, and it had no effect on power. And biggest of all, SAO’s abundant sword skills were gone.

In other words, ALfheim Online was an action-heavy game in which a player’s actual movement and decision-making made the difference, not stats. It would not be like SAO, in which a high-powered character could simply stand still while much weaker foes failed to put a dent into him.

The one major unknown was the existence of magic, which was not a part of SAO. There was an “Illusory Magic” in my skill list—probably a starter skill for spriggans—but I wouldn’t know more about how it affected gameplay until I used it…or had it used against me.

Window closed, I had another question for Yui, who was still snuggled against my chest with her eyes shut like a contented cat.

“By the way, how are you handled in this world, Yui?”

She was not actually a human being but an artificial intelligence that broke free of SAO when its mental counseling program bugged out.

In the present day of 2025, several research laboratories had announced the development of their own A.I.s that were extremely close to human intelligence. The ability for programs to act in an intelligent manner had improved to the point that the line between false intelligence and true intelligence was blurring. Those A.I.s that straddled the boundary were some of the most advanced technological feats in existence.

Yui could possibly be counted among them. She might be the very first true artificial intelligence. But none of that mattered to me. I loved Yui, and she adored me. That was enough.

“Let’s see. Here in ALfheim Online, it seems they have humanlike programs designed for player support, just as in SAO. They’re called Navigation Pixies…and that’s how I’m categorized.”

As she said this, her brow furrowed. A second later, her body glowed and disintegrated.

“What the—?” I shouted in alarm. I was about to leap to my feet and look around when I finally noticed what was resting on my knees.

She was no more than four inches in height. Tiny limbs extended out of a light magenta dress styled like flower petals. There were even two pairs of translucent wings on her back: the very image of a fairy. The size might have been different, but the adorable face and long black hair were unmistakably Yui’s.

“This is what I look like as a pixie.”

She stood up on my knees, hands on her waist, and flicked her wings back and forth.

“Oooh…”

Impressed, I jabbed her cheek with a finger.

“Hey, that tickles!” She laughed, flitting up into the air with a jingling sound to escape the wrath of my finger, before perching on my shoulder.

“So, do you still have admin privileges like before?”

“No,” she said, slightly disappointed. “All I can access are reference data and general map information. I can also view the status of players I’ve contacted personally, but I can’t seem to get into the main database.”

“I see. The thing is…” I composed myself to deliver the most important news. “Asuna, your mama…is here in this world.”

“Huh…? Mama’s here?” She leaped off my shoulder and hovered just in front of my face. “What do you mean?”

“…”

I was about to explain about Sugou but stopped at the last moment. It was the weight of negative human emotions that originally brought Yui to the brink of ruin. I didn’t want to expose her to any more malice.

“Even after the SAO server disintegrated, Asuna never came back to reality. I came here on some information that a person who looked like her was spotted in ALO. It could just be a coincidental stranger, but without anything better to go on…”

“I had no idea…I’m sorry, Papa. If I had the authority, I could run a check through the player database and tell you right away, but I don’t.”

“Actually, I have a good idea where to find her. It’s called the World Tree. Do you know where that is?”

“Ah, yes. That would be to the northeast, but it’s quite far off. More than thirty miles by real distance.”

“Wow, that’s really incredible, huh…Five times the diameter of the base floor of Aincrad…By the way, why did I get logged in to such a remote stretch of forest?” I wondered aloud, but Yui didn’t seem to have an answer.

“Either your locational data was corrupted or your information got mixed with another player diving within your real-life vicinity. But I couldn’t say for sure.”

“Would have been nice if I’d been teleported right next to the World Tree. Anyway, I was told you could fly in this game.” I got to my feet and craned my neck over my shoulder. “Hey, I’ve got wings!”

Sprouting from my back were sharply angled, clear gray wings—they almost looked like insect wings. I had no idea how to use them, however.

“So how do you fly?”

“It seems there’s a controller for assistance. Put out your left hand and motion like you’re gripping something.”

Following Yui’s instructions, I held out my hand and squeezed. Suddenly, I was holding what looked like a simple joystick.

“Let’s see, if you pull it back, you fly up, and pushing it down makes you descend. Turn left or right for rotation, the button accelerates, and letting go decelerates.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

I tried slowly pulling back the stick. The wings on my back sprung to full extension and began glowing gently. I pulled hard.

“Whoa!”

Abruptly I was floating, gently rising from the forest floor. Once I was a few feet off the ground, my body went into neutral, and I tried pressing the spherical button on the top of the stick. I started gliding forward, smoothly and effortlessly.

After a few experiments with descent and rotation, I started getting the hang of the controls. Compared to the flight-sim VR games I’d tried before, it was actually quite simple.

“Okay, I think I’ve got it down. Next, I need some basic information. Which way’s the nearest town?”

“There’s a place called Swilvane to the west. That’s the closest—Oh…”

She looked up suddenly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Players are approaching. It seems like a group of three chasing one…”

“Ooh, a battle? Let’s go check it out.”

“You never have a care in the world, do you, Papa?”

I gave Yui’s head a quick knuckling, then turned to my inventory to ensure my starter longsword was equipped on my back. I pulled it out and gave a few practice swings.

“Yikes, this thing is so cheap and flimsy. Oh well…”

Once the sword was back in its scabbard, I produced the flight stick again.

“Take the lead, Yui.”

“Roger!”

She alighted from my shoulder with a jingling of bells, and I started off on my first flight in the game.

The salamander’s gout of magic fire finally hit Leafa square in the back.

“Urgh!!”

There was no pain or heat to it, of course, but it felt as though a giant hand had caught her right in the back, and the shock wave toppled her balance. It didn’t do much damage, thanks to the protective wind spell she’d cast during her escape, but sylph territory was still a long way off.

On top of that, Leafa’s speed was starting to slow. It was that damned flight limitation. In less than a minute, her wings would lose their power, and she wouldn’t be able to fly at all.

“Hngh…”

She gnashed her teeth and dropped into a steep dive for the trees. With the enemy’s mage, she wouldn’t be able to hide for long, but it wasn’t Leafa’s style to give up and get hit.

She plunged through the canopy and made her way toward the surface, darting among the many layers of branches, her speed rapidly falling as she did. Eventually, she found a relatively clear space with plenty of thick grass. Leafa made a quick landing, the soles of her boots sliding on the ground to provide traction, and darted for cover around the back of a large tree ahead. Once out of sight, she put her hands in the air to cast a hiding spell.

Just as in fantasy movies, magic in ALO required the chanting of spells out loud. The game system required them to be spoken at a certain volume with clear pronunciation. Any slip of the tongue would cause the spell to fail, and then the caster had to start all over again.

Leafa successfully rattled off the memorized spell as quickly as she could, and a light green vapor issued from around her feet and upward, concealing her from the enemy.

This would protect her for the moment, but a high-level Search skill or clairvoyance spell would quickly see through her disguise. She held her breath and stayed as still as possible.

Within moments, she heard the approaching dull buzz of multiple salamanders. They landed in the clearing behind her. She could hear their measured shouts over the clanking of heavy armor.

“She must be around here somewhere! Search!”

“You know sylphs are good at hiding. We should use magic.”

After that, she heard the dull chanting of a spell. She had to hold her tongue to avoid uttering a curse. Just a few seconds later, the rustling of grass being parted came closer and closer.

The small shadows crawling over the massive tree’s roots toward her were lizards with red skin and eyes—actual salamanders. They represented the clairvoyance spell in effect. Several dozen searchers spread out in a circle formation from the caster. If they noticed any hidden players or monsters, they would leap out to make contact and burst into flames to alert the caster to the location.

Go away! Try somewhere else! Leafa silently commanded the lizards. They crawled on their paths at random, but her prayer went unheeded. One touched the surface of the vapor concealing her and instantly unleashed a high-pitched cry before lighting into vivid flame.

“There! She’s over there!”

Sounds of clanking metal rapidly approached, and Leafa had no choice but to leave the shadow of the tree. She spun around, sword in hand, to see three salamanders facing her with lances at the ready.

“You’re a pain in the ass, girl,” the man on the right said angrily, raising the visor on his helmet. The man in the center, who seemed to be their leader, continued.

“Sorry, but duty calls. Leave your money and items, and we’ll let you go.”

“Why? Let’s kill her! We haven’t had a girl sylph in ages!” the man on the left said this time, also sliding up his visor. The look he gave her was drunk with violence and power.

Her year of experience had taught her that there were more than a few who made a sport of “women-hunting.” Leafa’s skin crawled with revulsion. Hurling sexist taunts and groping others outside of battle set off the game’s antiharassment protection, but killing was central to the game’s conceit. Some sick bastards even claimed that killing a female VRMMO player was the greatest pleasure to be found in the game.

It was already bad enough in ALO, which was run with all the proper checks and balances. Leafa couldn’t even imagine what happened in that other legendary game without a chill running down her back.

She felt her feet grip the ground and raised her beloved two-handed blade over her head, saving her most powerful glare for the salamanders.

“I’ll take at least one of you down with me. Do your worst, if you’re not afraid of the death penalty,” she growled. The two men on the sides swung their lances, snarling with rage. The leader cut them short with a gesture.

“Give it up. Your wings are at their limit, and we have plenty of stamina to spare.”

He was right. Stuck on the ground against a flying enemy was the last place anyone wanted to be in ALO—especially one against three. But she wouldn’t give in. Especially not if the alternative was giving them money and begging to be set free.

“You’ve got a strong will. Very well.”

The leader shrugged, raised his lance, and beat his wings so that he hovered off the ground. The salamanders to either side followed his lead, controllers in hand.

Leafa’s biceps clenched, preparing to deliver at least one deadly swing at full power, even if it meant she wound up pierced by a trio of spears. They spread out to surround her on three sides. But just as they were set to charge, the scene was interrupted.

The shrub behind them rustled, and a black silhouette emerged. It slipped just past the salamanders, went into some kind of tailspin, and crashed into the grass with a tremendous clatter.

This wholly unexpected diversion caught Leafa and the salamanders off guard. They all stared at the mystery interloper.

“Ugh, oww…I’ve got the flying down; it’s the landing that’s the tricky part.”

That carefree comment came from the lightly tanned man who pulled himself off the ground. He had lively spiked hair and large, slightly slanted eyes. The overall combination suggested a rambunctious kid. The clear gray wings on his back marked him as a spriggan.

Leafa couldn’t believe her eyes—both that a spriggan would be here, so far from his territory in the distant east, and at the equipment he appeared to be wearing. He was dressed in a simple black doublet and trousers, no armor whatsoever. A flimsy-looking sword was his only weapon. It was clearly starter equipment. What was this newbie thinking, wandering out deep into neutral territory like this?

She called out a warning, unable to stand seeing a clueless newcomer brutally hunted for sport. “What are you doing? Run!”

But the boy in black didn’t budge. Did he not realize that PK-ing was legal among the different races? He shoved a hand into his pocket, surveyed the scene of Leafa and the three airborne salamanders, and said, “You need three heavily armed warriors to attack one girl? That’s kinda lame.”

“What did you say?!” Two of the salamanders took offense to his lazy insult and flew over to flank him, front and back. They lowered their lances and prepared to charge.

“Ugh…”

Even if she wanted to help, Leafa was effectively pinned down by the leader, who was still watching her like a hawk.

“You must be an idiot, barging directly into our business like this. Let’s start with you!”

The salamander positioned in front of the boy loudly snapped down his visor. The next moment, his outstretched wings glowed ruby red, and he charged. The one in the rear prepared to charge on a slight delay, so he could catch the boy if he dodged the first attack.

It was a helpless situation for any new player. Leafa bit her lip and averted her eyes, not wanting to see the boy run through…

But something unbelievable happened.

With his right hand still in his pocket, the boy extended his left hand and simply grabbed the deadly tip of the charging lance. The air was shattered by the light and sound of a successful guard effect. As Leafa watched, openmouthed with shock, the boy used the salamander’s momentum to hurl him backward, lance and all.

“Aaaah!”

The salamander wailed in surprise as he collided directly with his waiting partner, and they fell to earth with a metallic clatter.

The boy turned around to face them, put his hand on the sword behind his head—and stopped, looking to Leafa hesitantly.

“Um…so am I allowed to waste these guys?”

“I’d say so…That’s certainly what they’re trying to do to you,” she answered, still taken aback by the boy.

“Ah, good point. In that case…”

He pulled the weak-looking sword from its scabbard and let its tip trace along the ground. For all his talk about “wasting” their foes, neither his movement nor his manner suggested much confidence. His weight was balanced much too far forward, with his left foot perched in front, when—

A sudden shock wave erupted where the boy used to be. Even Leafa couldn’t follow his path, and she’d never once been caught blind by an attack in the game. She spun around hurriedly to see the boy crouched over, far from where he’d been standing. His pose suggested he’d brought up his sword to slash directly in front of him.

The salamander who was closer to standing after their collision suddenly erupted into red End Flames, then disintegrated. A small wisp of flame was left floating in the air.

How can anyone be so fast? Leafa wondered, terrified. Her body was trembling with the shock of witnessing a move she’d never experienced before.

Only one thing defined a character’s movement speed in this world: the speed of the brain when processing the signals sent by the full-dive system. The AmuSphere sent out a pulse; the brain received it, processed it, and then sent feedback in the form of a movement signal. The quicker that response system, the faster a character could move. It was said that only through considerable experience could one eventually move faster than his or her natural reaction speed.

Though she didn’t like to toot her own horn, Leafa was one of the very fastest among the sylphs. She’d honed her reflexes over many years, and twelve months of experience in ALO had taught her that no one could get the jump on her in a one-on-one fight. But this shattered that preconception.

As Leafa and the airborne salamander leader watched, stunned, the boy got to his feet and turned around, sword at the ready.

The other remaining salamander was still baffled as to what had happened. He was swiveling around, looking for his foe in the wrong direction.

The boy didn’t wait to be found. He prepared another brutal attack, one that Leafa swore she wouldn’t miss this time.

His first motion was easy, lazy, unhurried. But as soon as his first step hit the ground—

He blurred as another shock wave ripped the air. She actually saw it this time. It was like watching a movie in fast-forward, unconnected frames burned into her vision. The boy’s sword shot from below to above, severing the salamander’s torso. Even the flash of the visual effect was a split second late. He traveled forward a few extra yards and ended with the sword brandished high over his head. Another burst of flame announced a new fatality, and the second salamander was gone.

It was the speed that had originally caught Leafa’s eye, and now she belatedly realized what incredible damage he was inflicting. Those two salamanders hadn’t been at full HP to start with, but they’d had a comfortable majority of their health remaining. A single blow eliminating them was simply abnormal.

The equation to derive damage in ALO was not very complicated. It only took the weapon’s power, hit location, attack speed, and target’s armor into consideration. In this case, the weapon damage would be minimal, and the salamanders’ armor was formidable. Which meant, by the process of elimination, that this boy’s accuracy and speed had to be off the charts.

He raised himself easily to his feet again and set his sights on the salamander leader, still hovering in the air. He rested the sword on his shoulder and asked, “What’s up? You want a turn?”

The stunned salamander regained his composure and responded to the boy’s matter-of-fact challenge with a pained smirk.

“No, thank you. I know I can’t win. If you want my items, I’ll leave them for you. My magic skill is nearly at nine hundred—I’d rather not suffer the penalty for dying.”

“At least you’re honest.” The boy grinned. He turned to Leafa. “And how about you, lady? If you want to fight that guy, I won’t interfere.”

She had to laugh at this display of restraint, given his previous utter lack of it. Suddenly, her determination to take down at least one of the salamanders with her seemed a bit pointless.

“I’ll pass. But next time, I’ll beat you, salamander.”

“Well, I doubt I could beat you one-on-one anyway,” the red warrior said, spreading his wings. With a flash of fairy dust, he flew off. A brief rustle of branches sounded overhead, and he disappeared into the black night sky. Only Leafa, the boy dressed in black, and two red Remain Lights were left. Within a minute, both flames were gone.

She turned to the boy, slightly nervous again.

“So…what should I do now? Should I thank you? Run away? Or draw my blade?”

He sliced his sword back and forth quickly before sliding it back into the sheath over his back.

“Personally, given that I’m kind of the heroic knight who saved the princess from the villain in this little scene”—he smirked—“I could go for a tearful, smothering embrace from the grateful princess—”

“What? Are you crazy?!” Leafa screamed, her face suddenly hot. “I’d rather fight you!”

“Ha-ha-ha, I’m just kidding.”

She ground her teeth in disgust at his obvious delight, but before she could come up with a snappy retort, a third voice piped up out of nowhere.

“Th-that’s right! She can’t do that!”

It sounded like a young girl. Leafa looked around the clearing but didn’t see anyone. The boy hastened to respond.

“Hey, I told you not to come out!”

Looking closer, she saw something glowing, trying to escape the boy’s tunic pocket. It spun free and danced around his face, making petite jingling noises all the while.

“The only ones who get to hug Papa are Mama and me!”

“P-Papa?”

Leafa had to take several steps closer to see that it was a little fairy, small enough to perch on the palm of her hand—a Navigation Pixie, the kind that could be summoned from the help window. But those were only supposed to give prepared answers to basic game questions.

She forgot her suspicion of the boy for a moment and stared at the circling fairy.

“Uh, no, it’s not what you—”

He hastily tried to cover the pixie with both hands, smiling nervously. Leafa peered around his hands. “Hey, is this one of those private pixies?”

“Eh?”

“You know! The kind that were given out by lottery to those who preordered the game…Wow! I’ve never seen one before.”

“No, I’m not a—mghf!” the pixie piped up before the boy covered her up again.

“Y-yeah, that. I just got lucky in the draw.”

“Hmmm…”

Leafa gave the boy another appraising look, this one from head to toe.

“Wh-what?”

“Just thinking…you’re pretty weird. For someone who’s been into the game since before it opened, your equipment sure looks starter level. And yet you were super tough back there.”

“W-well, I made the account ages ago…but only started playing recently. I was busy with…a different VRMMO.”

“Oh?”

This didn’t entirely answer her suspicion, but if he’d gotten used to the AmuSphere with a different game, that would at least explain his incredible reflexes.

“But what’s a spriggan doing so far out here? Your territory is supposed to be way, way to the east.”

“B-because…I got lost…”

“Lost?!” Leafa couldn’t help but burst into laughter at his pathetic excuse. “Come on! No one’s sense of direction is that bad! You’re such a character!”

Now a real belly laugh came bubbling up at his affronted expression. Once she’d had a good chuckle at his expense, Leafa returned her long katana to its sheath.

“Well, I suppose you deserve some recognition. Thanks for saving me. My name’s Leafa.”

“I’m Kirito, and this is Yui.” He spread his hands to reveal the pixie. She bowed and fluttered up to land on his shoulder.

Leafa was somewhat surprised to realize that she actually wanted to sit and talk with this boy named Kirito. It was especially rare for her—she wasn’t particularly shy, but she didn’t make friends easily in this game. He didn’t seem to be a bad person, so she summoned up her courage and asked, “What are you doing after this?”

“Uh, nothing in particular…”

“Oh. In that case…why don’t you let me treat you to dinner?”

The boy named Kirito gave her a face-splitting grin. Leafa was inwardly impressed. VR games still hadn’t gotten fine emotional simulation down quite right, and few people could make a smile look so natural.

“That’d be great. I’m looking for someone to teach me things.”

“About what?”

“About this world. Especially”—he stopped smiling and turned to the northeast—“that tree.”

“The World Tree? Sure. Believe it or not, I’ve got seniority here myself. It’ll be a bit of a trip, but I’d recommend going to the neutral town to the north.”

“Are you sure? Isn’t there a town called Swilvane that’s closer?”

Leafa looked at him, exasperated. “True, there is. But you really don’t know anything, do you? That’s sylph territory.”

“Is that a bad thing?” he asked innocently.

She was stunned. “Well, you can’t attack any sylphs within a sylph town, but they can attack you.”

“Oh, I see…But they’re not going to rush out to whack me all at once, are they? You’ll be with me, Miss Leafa. Plus, I’d like to see the sylph land; I hear it’s beautiful.”

“Just ‘Leafa’ will do. You really are weird. Well, if you insist, I don’t mind, but…I can’t guarantee you’ll leave alive,” she said, shrugging. She loved the sylph home territory herself, so it didn’t hurt to hear him compliment it. She was also drawn to the idea of shocking all of her acquaintances by escorting a rare spriggan around town.

“Okay, I’ll fly you to Swilvane. It’s about time everyone logs in, anyway.”

She checked the window to confirm that it was just past four o’clock in the afternoon. She had a bit of time left to play.

Leafa’s wing power was mostly refilled by now; she beat her glowing wings once or twice. Kirito spoke up, curious.

“Wait, you can fly without a controller?”

“Sure I can. How about you?”

“I barely just learned how to use this thing.” Kirito made the grasping motion with his left hand.

“Ahh. Well, there’s a knack to using Voluntary Flight. Some people pick it up right away; some never figure it out. Let’s give it a try, shall we? Turn around and don’t pull out the controller.”

“Uh, okay.”

Kirito gave a half turn, and she extended her index fingers to touch just above the shoulder blades of his slender back. The pixie on his shoulder looked on in curious fascination.

“Can you tell what I’m touching?”

“Yes.”

“They call it Voluntary Flight, but you don’t just start flying with your imagination. You have to assume that there are virtual bones and muscles sprouting out of this spot, and move them.”

“Virtual bones…and muscles…”

He repeated the words vaguely and twitched his shoulder blades. In response, the intangible gray wings sprouting through his black outfit began to tremble with his movement.

“Yes, that’s it. First you just want to move all the muscles in your shoulders and back until you get the hang of which ones are connected to your wings!”

As soon as she said that, the boy’s back crunched inward. The vibration of his wings rose in pitch until it reached a high-pitched hum.

“Yes, that’s the way! Try that again, but harder!”

“Hrrm…”

Kirito tucked in his arms, grunting with the effort. Once she sensed that he’d built up enough thrust, Leafa slapped him heartily on the back.

“Wha—?”

Suddenly, the spriggan shot directly upward like a rocket.

“Aaaaahhh—”

Kirito’s wail grew distant as his body got smaller and smaller. A brief rustling of leaves above, and he was already beyond the forest canopy.

“…”

Leafa and the pixie who’d fallen off of Kirito’s shoulder looked at each other.

“Uh-oh.”

“Papa!!”

They both quickly took to the air after him. Once out of the forest, they scanned the night sky until they noticed an unsteady figure careering left and right against the background of the golden moon.

“Aaaaaahhh…let me ooooofff…”

The piteous wail echoed through the wide, open sky.

“Pfft!”

Leafa and Yui shared another look and burst into laughter together.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“I-I’m sorry, Papa, this is just too funny!”

They hovered side by side, holding their sides with laughter. When their mirth subsided, a fresh lament from Kirito came floating on the wind, and they fell back into more chuckling.

Legs kicking helplessly, Leafa wondered when she’d last had a laugh as good as this one. Certainly not here in this game.

Once she’d gotten the giggles out of her system, Leafa caught Kirito’s collar to halt his wild flight path. She gave him another primer on the knack of Voluntary Flight, and after just a ten-minute lesson, he was already managing to fly unsteadily on his own.

“Whoa…this is…great!” he exclaimed as he tried making wide turns and loop-the-loops.

“Isn’t it?” Leafa laughed.

“It’s just so…I dunno, moving. I wish I could keep flying like this forever…”

“I know!”

In her excitement, Leafa flapped her wings to fly in parallel alongside Kirito.

“No fair! Me, too!” the pixie chirped, taking a spot between them.

“Once you’re used to it, practice those back and shoulder blade movements so they’re as small as you can make them. If you’re too big and sloppy, you won’t be able to swing your sword properly during an air battle. Well, are you ready to fly to Swilvane? Follow me!”

She did a tight turn and checked her bearings before setting off for the far side of the forest. She kept her speed low, knowing that it was Kirito’s first time, but he soon caught up to her side.

“You can go faster, ya know.”

“Oh yeah?” She grinned and folded her wings sharply, picking up her pace. She went faster and faster, hoping to hear Kirito change his tune. The air buffeted her entire body, the wind howling in her ears.

But surprisingly enough, even at 70 percent of her maximum speed, Kirito was following along. Normally, one would slow down well before the actual maximum flight speed designated by the game system, due to the sheer mental pressure. The fact that he could achieve such a range in his first attempt at Voluntary Flight spoke to a very firm willpower.

Leafa gritted her teeth and hit her highest acceleration. She’d never gone this fast with a partner before—nobody else could keep up.

The forest below her was a messy blur. The high-pitched violin whine of sylph flight was blending harmoniously with the whistling woodwind of the spriggan’s wings.

“Aaah, I can’t take anymooore…”

Yui the pixie zipped back into Kirito’s shirt pocket. He and Leafa shared a look, then laughed.

Soon the forest thinned out ahead, and a jumble of different-colored lights came into view. In the center stood a radiant tower, brighter than the rest. They had reached Swilvane, capital of the sylph region, and its iconic Tower of Wind. As they grew closer, the main streets and a variety of players going about their business came into view.

“Hey, there it is,” Kirito shouted over the howling of the wind.

“We’re going to land at the base of that tower in the center! Uh…wait…” The smile froze on Leafa’s face as something occurred to her. “Kirito, do you know how to land…?”

“…”

He froze up as well.

“I do not…”

“Umm…”

The enormous tower already took up half of their field of vision ahead.

“Sorry, too late now. Good luck!” Leafa smiled apologetically and prepared to slow down. She stretched out her wings to catch the air and began the descent to the square, legs held out in front of her.

“Wha…? You’ve gotta be kidding meeeee—”

The spriggan plunged straight toward the outer wall of the tower, still screaming. Leafa watched him go and said a silent prayer in his honor.

Several seconds later, the air shook with a tremendous crash.

“That was messed up, Leafa…I’m going to be afraid to fly now.”

Kirito glared at her vengefully as he sat in the wildly colored flower bed at the base of the jade-green tower.

“I got really dizzy!” exclaimed the pixie on his shoulder, her head swaying in a circle. Leafa leaned over, hands on her hips, trying not to laugh.

“That’s what happens when you get too carried away. Consider yourself lucky to have survived at all. I was sure you were dead.”

“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

He had slammed face-first into the wall at top speed, but Kirito still had more than half of his HP remaining. He truly was a mysterious newbie. Was he just lucky, or did he know how to brace himself against impact?

“Don’t worry, I’ll heal you,” she reassured him, chanting the healing incantation with her right hand held out to him. Glowing blue dewdrops sprayed out from her palm onto Kirito.

“Oh, cool. So that’s magic, huh?” Kirito watched her with intense interest.

“You can’t use high-level healing magic unless you’re an undine. But the more basic stuff is totally essential, so you ought to learn it.”

“So the different races have different magical affinities, huh? What about spriggans?”

“They’re good at treasure hunting and illusion magic, I think. Neither of which is very useful in battle, which means they’re actually the least popular race.”

“Yikes…this is why you should research first,” Kirito groaned, getting to his feet. He stretched widely and cast a glance around the area. “Wow, so this is what the sylph town looks like! It’s really beautiful.”

“Isn’t it?” Leafa surveyed her familiar hometown with him.

Swilvane was also known as the “Jade City.” Delicate towers were connected by a series of complex midair pathways, and everything in the city shone with one shade of jade green or another. When the entire place was illuminated by the glowing evening lights amid the darkness, the sight was nothing short of pure fantasy. In particular, Leafa believed the splendor of the lord’s mansion behind the Tower of Wind was unmatched by any other building in Alfheim.

They both stood in silence, watching people pass through the city of lights, when a voice suddenly called out from the right.

“Leafa! You’re all right!”

She turned to see a young sylph with yellow-green hair running up and waving wildly.

“Oh, Recon. Yeah, I’m fine.”

He came to a halt in front of Leafa, his eyes shining. “That’s just amazing. If anyone could escape from such a large group of enemies, it’d be…uh…”

Recon belatedly noticed the dark figure standing next to Leafa, and he froze for several seconds, his mouth agape.

“Wha…y-you’re a spriggan! What are you doing here?” He leaped backward and put a hand on his dagger, but Leafa quickly interceded.

“It’s okay, Recon. He saved me.”

“Uh…”

She pointed to Recon, who was still confused. “This is Recon, a good friend. He got wasted by those salamanders just before I met you.”

“Sorry I didn’t get there sooner, then. Hi, I’m Kirito.”

“Um, nice to meet you.” He grasped Kirito’s outstretched hand and bowed deeply. “Wait, no!” Recon leaped backward again. “Are you sure about this, Leafa? What if he’s a spy?”

“I had my doubts at first, too. But he seems a bit too airheaded to be a spy.”

“Hey, that’s messed up!”

Recon watched Leafa and Kirito laugh, suspicion in his eyes, then cleared his throat to get their attention.

“Sigurd and the rest are already sitting down in Daffodil Hall. They’re going to divvy up the items there.”

“Oh, I see. Umm…”

When killed by an enemy player, any character had a 30 percent chance of his or her equipment being stolen. However, when in a party, insurance slots were available to hold items of particular value. If the player was killed, that item would automatically be transferred to another party member for safekeeping.

Anything of value from the day’s hunting party was tagged as insurance, which meant that as the last survivor of the group, Leafa wound up with all the spoils. The salamanders knew that, hence their persistence in chasing her down. Thanks to Kirito, however, she was able to bring the entire haul back to Swilvane.

Normally, the party would rendezvous back in a tavern so that all members, surviving or slain, could redistribute the loot. Leafa considered for a moment before answering Recon.

“I’ll pass. None of the items fit my skills, anyway. I’ll leave them with you to split up among the others.”

“Uh…you’re not coming?”

“Nope. I promised Kirito a free meal.”

“…”

Now Recon gave Kirito an appraising look of an entirely different sort.

“Don’t get any funny ideas, okay?” She gave the toes of Recon’s boots a kick, and then opened up a trade window, dumping all of the day’s spoils into his inventory. “Just shoot me a message when the next hunt is scheduled, and I’ll participate if the time works out. See you later!”

“Um, Leafa…”

But she was growing uncomfortable under the scrutiny. After forcing a premature end to the conversation, Leafa grabbed Kirito’s sleeve and pulled him away.

“So was that guy your boyfriend?”

“Was he your lover?”

“Excuse me?!” Leafa tripped on the paving stones at the simultaneous questions from Kirito and Yui. Her wings spread wide as she caught her balance. “No way! He’s just a party member!”

“You two seemed pretty close for in-game acquaintances.”

“Well, I do know him in real life—he’s a classmate at school. But that’s it.”

“Playing a VRMMO with your classmate, huh? That sounds fun,” Kirito said wistfully, but Leafa grimaced.

“It’s not all great, actually. Sometimes it reminds you of the homework you need to do.”

“Ha-ha-ha, good point.”

They made their way down an alley as they chatted. The occasional passing sylph did a double take at Kirito’s black hair, but the sight of Leafa accompanying him kept them from voicing any suspicions. Leafa wasn’t the most active player in the game, but she was well known around town for winning Swilvane’s regular fighting tournaments on multiple occasions.

Eventually, a cozy tavern-inn came into view. It was the Lily of the Valley, a favorite of Leafa’s for their excellent dessert selection.

She pushed open the swinging door and surveyed the room finding there were no players inside. In real time, it was early evening, so there would be some time yet before people finished their adventures for the night and came back to celebrate with a drink.

She and Kirito sat down at a window table in the back.

“It’s all on me, so order whatever you want.”

“In that case…”

“Just don’t eat too much, or it’ll be rough after logging out,” Leafa said, eyeing the tempting dessert menu.

Mysteriously enough, the virtual feeling of fullness after eating a meal in Alfheim did not disappear for a while once out of the game. The ability to eat all the sweets she could stand without worrying about calories was one of the biggest draws of a VRMMO for Leafa. The downside was her mother’s scolding when she showed up for dinner without an appetite.

It wasn’t uncommon to see news articles about people suffering from malnutrition because they used the system as a dieting aid. Even worse were the heavy players who spent their entire lives in the game and starved to death because the in-game food tricked them into forgetting to eat.

Leafa ordered a fruit bavarois, Kirito a nut tart, and Yui a cheese cookie, to Leafa’s surprise. For drinks, they had a bottle of spiced wine. The NPC waitress set their orders on the table as soon as they’d placed them.

“Well, let’s make it official: Thanks for saving me.”

They clinked their glasses of odd green wine, and Leafa threw the cold liquid down her parched throat. Kirito refilled her glass just as quickly and grinned at her.

“Eh, it just happened that way…Those guys sure were eager for that fight, though. Do you get lots of those PK gangs here?”

“Well, salamanders and sylphs are at odds to begin with. Our territories are adjacent, so there’s constant clashing in the hunting grounds between us, and there’s been lots of competition for power. It’s only recently that there have been organized PKs like that, though. I’m pretty sure they must be planning an assault on the World Tree soon…”

“Speaking of which, I need you to teach me about the World Tree.”

“That’s right, you mentioned that. But why?”

“I want to get to the top of it.”

She gave him an exasperated look. But he wasn’t joking—his black eyes were shining earnestly.

“Well…that’s what every player in the game wants to do. In fact, it’s the greatest quest in the game of ALfheim Online.”

“Meaning?”

“You know about the flight limits, right? Every race in the game can only fly for about ten minutes at a time, max. But whichever race reaches the floating city atop the World Tree first—and meets Fairy King Oberon—will all be reborn as a new, higher race called alfs. After that, you’ll be able to fly as long and far as you want.”

“I see,” Kirito murmured, taking a bite of his nut tart. “It’s an enticing story. Does anyone know the way to get to the top of the tree?”

“Within the roots beneath the tree is a giant dome. There’s an entrance in the roof of the dome that lets you climb up the inside of the tree, but the NPC guardians that watch over the dome are superpowerful. A bunch of the different races have tried to challenge them, but we’ve been wiped out every time. The salamanders are the most powerful race at the moment. They’re probably mustering forces now, gathering money for equipment and items, thinking the next time’s the charm.”

“So these guardians are that strong, huh?”

“It’s insane. ALO opened a year ago. What game has a quest you can’t beat even after a year of play?”

“Good point…”

“Well, last autumn, one of the major ALO fan sites started a petition to have RCT rebalance the quest.”

“Oh, really? And…?”

“They gave us this canned response. ‘The game is properly balanced according to the team’s specifications.’ Lately, a lot of people are saying that our current strategy is never going to work.”

“Could it be that a major story quest’s been missed, or that it’s simply impossible for a single race to conquer on its own?”

Leafa was about to put another spoonful of bavarois in her mouth but stopped to give Kirito a surprised look. “That’s a very sharp idea. As it happens, that’s what we’re doing now—checking around to make sure we haven’t missed any quests. But if it’s the latter, that’ll never happen.”

“Never?”

“I mean, it’s a contradiction. The quest is only beatable by the first race to complete it. Who’s going to help another race complete the quest if it just means losing out on the prize?”

“So you’re saying…the World Tree is essentially impossible to climb…?”

“In my opinion. I mean, there are other quests, and you can always raise your crafting skills…But it’s hard to give up on it once you’ve learned how fun it is to fly…Still, I’m sure we’ll get it someday, even if it takes a hundred years…”

“That’ll be too late!” Kirito muttered darkly.

Leafa looked up with a start and saw a deep furrow in his brow, his lips twisted as he gritted his teeth in frustration.

“Papa…?” The pixie put down the cookie she’d been holding two-handed and flew over to land on Kirito’s shoulder. She rubbed a tiny hand on the boy’s cheek to comfort him. A few moments later, he slumped down in resignation.

“I’m sorry to startle you,” he said quietly. “I have to get to the top of that tree.”

Kirito stared right into her, his eyes as sharp and shining as a finely honed blade. Leafa suddenly realized that her heart had begun to beat much faster. She took a quick sip of wine to hide her fluster.

“Why is it…so urgent?”

“I’m…looking for someone.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s hard to explain…”

He gave her a weak smile. But his eyes seemed to be hiding a deep pool of despair. They were eyes that she’d seen somewhere before.

“Well…thanks for the grub, Leafa. I appreciate all the advice. I’m glad you were the first person I ran into.” He made to get up, but Leafa unconsciously reached out to grab his arm.

“W-wait. Are you going…to the World Tree?”

“Yeah. I need to see it for myself.”

“That would be reckless of you…It’s so incredibly far, and there are tough monsters on the way. I can tell you’re strong, but…” And before she could stop herself, the words tumbled out of her mouth. “Tell you what. I’ll take you there.”

“Huh…?” Kirito’s eyes grew wide. “No, I couldn’t ask you to do that. Not when we just met…”

“It’s fine! I’ve made up my mind!”

Leafa turned her face away to hide the blush that had snuck over her cheeks. Because everyone in ALO had wings, there was no fast-travel system. The trip to Alne, the city at the center of Alfheim that sat around the World Tree, was equivalent to a real-life journey. The offer she’d just made, to this boy she’d met just a few hours before, was simply unfathomable.

But…she just couldn’t let him go alone.

“Will you be on tomorrow?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Meet here at three o’clock PM, then. I’ve got to leave for now. Go to the inn upstairs to log out. See you tomorrow!”

Before she had even finished speaking, Leafa was waving her hand to bring up the game menu. She could log out instantly anywhere in sylph territory, so she smacked the button at once.

“H-hey, wait!” Kirito blurted out, and she looked up to see him smiling at her. “Thanks.”

She did her best to smile back, and then nodded before hitting the OK button. The world flashed into a rainbow of light, then blacked out. The sensations of Leafa’s body faded away, until only the burning of her cheeks and racing of her heart remained.

Her eyes opened slowly.

The first thing she saw was the familiar ceiling of her room and the large poster she’d pinned to it. It was a custom-made poster of an in-game screenshot blown up as large as she could get it. The picture was of a flying fairy with a long ponytail in the midst of a flock of birds and endless blue sky.

Suguha Kirigaya raised her hands and slowly removed the AmuSphere. The device was two simple rings in a crown-like structure: much more fragile than the original NerveGear but without the same sensation of being clamped into place.

Even back in the real world, her cheeks were still ablaze. She sat up in bed, slapped her face, and raised a silent wail inside her chest.

Aaaahhh!

Waves of belated embarrassment crashed over her at her boldness. Recon (her classmate Shinichi Nagata) once said that when Suguha was Leafa, she was at least 50 percent bolder. Today’s escapade was well above that mark. She writhed in agony, her legs flopping on the bed.

He was such a strange boy. Well, there was no saying whether the player was actually a boy, but Suguha’s instinct told her he was quite close to her age. But between his relaxed demeanor and his occasional mischievous remarks, it was hard to tell for sure.

His personality wasn’t the only mystery, though. Where did that incredible strength come from? In her year of playing ALO, he was the first person she’d come across who didn’t seem beatable in a duel. She spoke his name very quietly.

“Kirito, huh…?”

The first time that Suguha had felt the urge to see a virtual world for herself was just about a year after the SAO Incident began.

Until then, the concept of a VRMMO was nothing but a target of loathing to her, the tool that had literally stolen her brother from her. But the more she held Kazuto’s hand as he slept in his hospital bed, the more she spoke to his deaf ears, the more she began to wonder what his world was like. It was up to her to bridge the distance that was now between them, she had thought.

Midori had given her a long, hard look when Suguha said she wanted an AmuSphere, but she eventually granted her daughter’s request, asking only that she be mindful of the time and her health.

The next day at lunch, Suguha visited the desk of Shinichi Nagata, the biggest gamer in class—for better or for worse—and asked him to come up to the roof with her to discuss a serious topic. The absolute silence and subsequent frenzy of the class after this scene was still the stuff of legend.

Leaning against the chain-link fence around the roof, Suguha asked the hopelessly anticipatory Nagata to teach her about VRMMOs. After several seconds and an entire emotional spectrum of facial expressions, he asked her what kind of game she had in mind.

When Suguha told him that she couldn’t take any time away from her studies and kendo practice, Nagata pushed his glasses up on his nose and muttered some gibberish like, “You’ll want a skill-based entry rather than a grindfest time-sink, then.” Ultimately, his best recommendation was ALfheim Online.

She hadn’t been expecting him to start playing ALO with her, but with the help of his thorough tutorials, Suguha found that she was surprisingly well suited to this virtual world game. There were two main reasons.

First, Suguha’s years of diligent kendo study translated extremely well into the game.

When players squared off in battle, evasion was a foreign concept. It was a foregone conclusion that both sides would hit the other; as long as your total damage was higher, the battle was won. But Suguha’s well-trained reflexes and instincts meant she could easily avoid most attacks. In a way, her almost unfair skill at the game was a natural outcome.

If ALO had been a level-based MMO like so many others, the lack of time to invest in her character meant she would never match the core players. In fact, among the veterans of ALO, Leafa’s stats were actually below average. It was only because ALO was such a skill-based game that she was powerful enough to be considered one of the Five Great Sylphs.

The second thing that drew Suguha to the game was something entirely unique to ALO: the flight system.

She could still easily remember the sensation of absolute joy the first time she got the knack of Voluntary Flight and was able to fly of her own free will.

Suguha was small. Her lack of reach in kendo bouts was a constant thorn in her side, and as a response, she had learned from a young age to always go faster, farther. So the way that ALO let her use that long katana in an overhead stance—impossible when one hand was holding a flight stick—and then slash through foes at extreme long range was bliss beyond compare. And beyond that, there were the sharp dives that threatened to shake her to pieces; the long, gentle cruises at high elevation among the flocks of birds; and so much more. With the act of flying, Suguha was deeply in love.

So while slow, clumsy Recon called her a “raging speedaholic,” Suguha couldn’t imagine playing ALO without the joy of flight.

After a year of experience in the game, Suguha was a fully dedicated VRMMO player. She’d started this experiment to grow closer to her brother, and now she loved it for what it was.

Several times a day since Kazuto had come back, Suguha had desperately wanted to talk to him about ALO—to share the pains and pleasures of the virtual world she’d finally come to understand with him. But the sight of the shadows behind his eyes kept her from ever broaching the subject.

She was certain that even after the horrors of the SAO Incident, Kazuto still loved the idea of a virtual world. All the NerveGears were supposedly recalled, but he’d gotten his back somehow, and the Sword Art Online ROM card was stuck in the photo stand on his desk.

But the SAO Incident wasn’t over for Kazuto. Not until she woke up.

The thought tore Suguha’s heart to pieces. She never wanted to see him cry in such terrible despair again, the way he had last night. She wanted him to have a smile on his face at all times. And for that reason, she wanted his lost love to wake up.

But she knew that when it happened, Kazuto’s heart would be forever beyond her reach.

If only they’d been actual siblings. She’d never have come to feel this way. She’d never desire to keep Kazuto all to herself.

As she lay back in bed and stared at the poster of the Alfheim sky, Suguha wondered why people didn’t have wings. She wished she could fly as far as she wanted in the real sky, until the tangled web around her heart was blown away.

I stared at the seat that had held the sylph girl named Leafa just moments before, still a bit shaken.

“I wonder what got into her,” I muttered. On my shoulder, I could feel Yui tilting her head in confusion.

“I don’t know…I don’t have my old mental monitoring functions anymore.”

“Figures. Well, it’s nice of her to offer to show me the way.”

“If a map is what you need, I’ve got one. But the more on our side, the safer we’ll be. On the other hand…” Yui stood up to speak directly into my ear. “You shouldn’t cheat on Mama, Papa.”

“I’m not, I’m not!”

I shook my head furiously. Yui leaped off my shoulder with a giggle and landed on the table, resuming her two-handed cookie feast.

“Sure, it’s all funny to you,” I grumbled, taking a swig directly from the bottle of herb wine.

She had a point, though. Not about “cheating” on anyone, but the simple fact that Leafa wasn’t just a character in a game. There was a player on the other end, a stranger with an entirely different personality.

For a very long time, the virtual world had been my reality. It was pointless to ponder the differences between player and character there—all emotion, whether malicious or friendly, was real. It was the only way to survive.

But that didn’t apply here, of course. All players were acting out a persona; the only differences were in the degree. There was no stigma against playing as a thief— attacking, stealing, killing; if anything, it was recommended.

“This VRMMO stuff is tricky.” I sighed, then grimaced at my words. I put down the empty bottle and dropped Yui—still challenging the cookie as big as she was— onto my shoulder. It was time to leave this world for a bit.

The particulars of logging out in an MMORPG were a delicate balance between player convenience and game fairness.

For example, there were many times when one needed to leave abruptly to handle a pressing personal matter or attend to physical needs, which was fine. But if logging out were instantaneous across the board, what was to stop a player from abusing the feature in the midst of a losing battle or during a chase after committing theft? Most MMORPGs therefore placed limits on logging out. ALO was no exception: instant log-out was only possible in one’s own territory. Anywhere else, and the player’s soulless avatar was left in place for several minutes, openly susceptible to attack or theft.

Logging out of the game safely outside of racial territory required the use of a special camping gear item or taking out a room at an inn, so I decided to follow Leafa’s advice and leave the game from the second floor of the Lily of the Valley.

I checked in at the counter and climbed the stairs. Behind the door with the number I’d been given was a simple room with just a bed and table. I was struck by a powerful sense of déjà vu. Until I’d earned enough money to buy my own room in Aincrad, I’d stayed many a night in rooms like this.

All I needed to do was open my window and hit the log-out button, but I decided to remove my equipment and lie down in bed to try a “sleep log-out.”

There was one other issue with logging out, specific to full-dive VR games. If the signals from the virtual in-game senses and the real senses were too different over the short interval of leaving the game, an unpleasant dizziness could result. For example, going from a standing position to sitting could cause a brief lightheadedness. Before I ever played SAO, I’d tried a flight game and logged out during a severe nosedive. Even after recovering my normal senses, I was plagued by the sensation of falling for some time, an experience I had no desire to repeat.

The ideal solution to this issue was called a “sleep log-out,” which was to enter sleep inside the virtual world, log out automatically, and wake up from sleep in the real world.

I sprawled leisurely on the bed and watched as Yui finished her cookie and came flapping over. She spun around once and landed on the floor in her original form. Her long hair and white dress rippled, and a whiff of perfume floated on the air.

Yui pulled her arms behind her back, leaned forward slightly, and said, “Good-bye until tomorrow, Papa.”

“I guess you’re right. Sorry, Yui. You waited so long to see me again…I’ll be right back for you, okay?”

“Umm…”

She cast her eyes down, her cheeks reddening slightly. “Can I lie on the bed with you until you log out?”

“Huh?”

An embarrassed smile floated onto my face. I was nothing but Yui’s “papa,” and she was simply an AI seeking a greater range of data from her surroundings, but she also took the form of a very cute girl, and her words were enough to make me feel self-conscious…

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

I had to suppress my shyness and roll toward the wall to give Yui room. She smiled happily and hopped onto the bed.

As she rubbed her cheek against my chest and I stroked her long hair, I murmured, “We need to rescue Asuna quickly so we can buy another home somewhere. Do you think there are player homes in this game?”

Yui looked surprised for a moment, then nodded. “They seem to be quite expensive, but they’re available.” She paused. “It would be like a dream, wouldn’t it, you and me and Mama, to live as a family again. Just the three of us…”

Nostalgia gripped my chest like a vise as I remembered those fond days. It was only a few months ago, but it seemed like a product of the long-distant past, never to be regained…

I hugged Yui tight and closed my eyes.

“It’s not a dream…I’ll make it real soon enough…”

I was suddenly struck by a deep sleepiness, perhaps after the mental rigor of my first dive in quite a while.

“Good night, Papa.” Yui’s voice rang like a dainty bell, caressing my mind as I sank into the warm darkness of sleep.