Sword Art Online – Progressive - Volume 1 - Chapter 1.03

3 
AINCRAD WAS BROADLY CONICAL IN SHAPE, SO THE lowest floor was therefore the largest. The circular floor was about six miles across with a surface of over thirty square miles. In comparison, the city of Kawagoe in Saitama Prefecture, home to over three hundred thousand, was a little over thirty-eight square miles. 
Because of its size, there was actually a considerable variety of terrain to be found. At the southern tip of the landmass was the Town of Beginnings, a city over half a mile across, surrounded by a semicircular wall. Outside of the city were rippling plains filled with boars and wolves, as well as insect monsters such as worms, beetles, and wasps. 
Across the field to the northwest was a deep forest, while the northeast held swampy lowlands dotted with lakes. Beyond these regions lay mountains, valleys, and ruins, each full of appropriate assortments of monsters. At the northern end of the floor was a squat tower three hundred yards across and a hundred yards tall—the first-floor labyrinth. 
Aside from the Town of Beginnings, the floor was dotted with a number of other settlements of various sizes, the largest of which—though only two hundred yards from one end to the other—was Tolbana, a valley town closest to the floor’s labyrinth. 
The first visit by a player to this tranquil town lined with massive windmills was three weeks after the official launch of Sword Art Online. 
By that time, over eighteen hundred players had perished. 
The mysterious fencer and I left the forest—not together, but at an awkward distance—and passed through the northern gate of Tolbana. 
A purple message in my field of vision stating SAFE HAVEN indicated that we were within town limits. Instantly, I felt the exhaustion of the long day settle onto my shoulders. A sigh escaped my lips. 
If I felt this bad after only leaving the town that morning, the fencer behind me must have felt much worse. I turned back to check on her, but her knee-high boots did not falter. A few hours of sleep couldn’t have erased the fatigue of three days of straight combat, so she must have been putting on a brave front. It seemed like returning to town ought to be cause for relaxing both mind and body (and in this virtual setting, they were the same thing), but she didn’t appear to be in the mood for suggestions. 
Instead, I kept things short and sweet. “The meeting’s at the town square, four in the afternoon.” 
“…” 
The face within the hood nodded slightly, but she kept walking right past me. 
A slight breeze running through the valley town rippled her cape as she passed. I briefly opened my mouth but found nothing to say. I’d spent the last month vigorously avoiding all human contact as a solo player; I had no right to expect anyone to welcome me with open arms. The only concern I’d had was in saving my own life. 
“Strange girl, yah?” a voice muttered from behind me. I tore my gaze away from the fencer and turned around. “Seems to be on death’s door, but never dies. Clearly a newbie, but her moves are sharp as steel. Who can she be?” 
The voice, a high-pitched wheedle that rose into an odd nasal whine at the end of each sentence, belonged to a slippery little player an entire head shorter than me. Like me, she wore only cloth and leather armor. The weapons on her waist were a small claw and some throwing needles. It didn’t seem like the kind of stuff that would get her out to this dangerous zone, but this person’s greatest weapon did not have a blade. 
“You know that fencer?” I asked her automatically, then grimaced, anticipating her answer. Sure enough, the little woman held up a hand, all five fingers extended. 
“I make it cheap. Five hundred col?” 
The smiling face had one very distinct feature. She’d used a cosmetic item to draw three lines on either cheek in the style of animal whiskers. Combined with her short mousy-brown curls, the overall effect was unmistakably rodent-like. 
I’d asked her why she chose that appearance before, but her only response was “You don’t ask a girl the reason she puts on make-up, do ya? I’ll tell you for one hundred thousand col.” So the answer was still a mystery. 
I silently swore to myself that one day, I’d actually cash in a rare item and pay the exorbitant fee, just to force an answer out of her. 
“I don’t feel comfortable trafficking in a girl’s private information,” I muttered sternly. 
“Nee-hee! Good mindset to have,” she said smarmily. Argo the Rat, the first information trader in Aincrad, chittered with laughter. 
Watch out. Five minutes of chatting with the Rat, and she’ll have worked a hundred col outta you, someone had warned me once. But according to Argo, she’d never once sold a piece of information whose verification was unclear. She always paid a source for info she considered worth something, and only turned it into a product to sell once she’d made sure the story was solid. It seemed clear to me that a single piece of poor intel sold for cash would ruin her reputation, so while it wasn’t exactly the same as farming ingredients in dungeons and selling them to NPCs, as a business, it had its own set of perils. 
Although I knew my skepticism was sexist, I couldn’t help but wondering why a female player would choose to dabble in such dangerous work. But I knew that if I asked, she’d quote me another price of one hundred thousand col, so I cleared my throat and asked a different question. 
“Well? Is it the usual proxy negotiation today, rather than your main business?” 
Now it was Argo’s turn to scowl. She looked back and forth, then prodded my back with a finger, guiding me to a nearby alleyway. With the boss meeting a full two hours away, there were few players milling about the town, but it seemed to be important that she not be overheard—probably something to do with her reputation as a guardian of secrets. 
Argo came to a stop in the narrow alley and rested her back on the wall of the house (inhabited by an NPC, of course) before nodding. 
“Yeah, that’s right. They’ll go up to twenty-nine thousand eight hundred col.” 
“Twenty-nine, huh?” I grimaced and shrugged. “Sorry … my answer’s the same, no matter the number. Not gonna sell.” 
“That’s what I told the client, but what can ya do?” 

Argo’s main business was selling information, but she used her excellent agility stat to moonlight as a messenger. Normally she simply passed along brief verbal or written messages, but for the past week, she’d been a pipeline to me from someone very insistent, if not downright pushy. 
He (or she) wanted to buy my Anneal Blade +6 (3S3D). 
The weapon-strengthening system in SAO was relatively simple for a modern MMORPG. There were five parameters: Sharpness, Quickness, Accuracy, Heaviness, and Durability. For a price, an NPC or player blacksmith could attempt to raise a particular stat for you. The process required specific crafting materials depending on the stat, and there was always a probability that it would fail. This was similar to the way it worked in other games. 
Each time a parameter was successfully raised, the weapon name gained a +1, or +2, and so on, but the actual statistic being affected wasn’t clear until you tapped on the item properties directly. Since it would be a pain to say “plus one to accuracy and plus two to heaviness” each time when trading with other players, it was common to abbreviate the information instead. Therefore, a +4 weapon with 1 to accuracy, 2 to heaviness, and 1 to durability would be labeled “1A2H1D.” 
My Anneal Blade +6 (3S3D) increased sharpness and durability by three points each. It took quite a lot of persistence and good fortune to improve it that much on the first floor. Few players bothered to work on the Blacksmithing skill—which had no bearing on your odds of survival—and despite the dwarfish appearance of the NPC blacksmiths, their actual skill was sorely disappointing. 
Even the base weapon was the reward of an extremely tough quest, so the sword’s current values had to be about the maximum a player could expect to find on the first floor. But it was still starter equipment. I might pump it up a few more times, but I’d find a better sword on the third or fourth floor, and the process would begin all over again. 
For that reason, I had a hard time fathoming the motive of Argo’s client to pay the massive sum of 29,800 col for such a weapon. In a face-to-face negotiation, I could simply ask the buyer, but without a name to track down, there was no way to find out about them. 
“And how much are they paying you to keep quiet? A thousand?” I asked. Argo nodded. 
“Yeah, I’d say so. Feel like upping the ante?” 
“Hmm… one k, huh? Hmmmm.” 
This “hush money” was a fee that Mystery Bidder X was paying Argo to keep their identity hidden. If I offered to pay 1,100 col, Argo would pass that along via instant message, until they came back with 1,200 col. Then I’d be asked to pony up 1,300, and so on. If I ended up winning the bidding war, I’d learn who wanted to buy my sword, but I’d end up losing a significant amount of cash. That would clearly be an idiotic outcome. 
“Great … So you’re an information broker who makes money even when you don’t sell? Gotta admire your dedication to your business,” I grumbled. Argo’s whiskered face broke into a grin and she hissed with laughter. 
“That’s the best part about it, see? The moment I sell a piece of intel, I’ve got a brand-new product to sell: So-and-so just bought such-and-such information. It’s twice the profit!” 
In real life, an attorney would never reveal the name of her client, but given the Rat’s motto of “all information has a price,” she didn’t seem to honor that taboo. Anyone who wanted to make a deal with her needed to know beforehand that their own information could be sold, but when her product was so excellent, who could complain about the price? 
“If any female players want my personal information, let me know so I can buy theirs first,” I said wearily. Argo cackled again, then put on a serious expression. 
“Okay, I’ll tell the client you refused again. I’ll even throw in my opinion that they won’t get through to ya. So long, Kii-boy.” 
The Rat turned and waved, then darted back out of the alley as nimbly as her namesake. After a momentary glimpse of her brown curls vanishing into the crowd, I felt sure she’d never get herself killed. 
I’d learned several things over the first month of SAO, the game of death. 
What separated a player’s likelihood of life or death? There were an infinite number of variables—stock of potions, knowing when to leave a dungeon, and so on—but somewhere at the center of those swirling factors was the presence of a person’s core, something they could believe in unconditionally. You might call it one’s greatest weapon, a tool necessary for survival. 
For Argo, that was information. She knew everything crucial: where the dangerous monsters were and the most efficient places to hunt. That knowledge gave her confidence and a cool head, which raised her chances of survival. 
What was my core? It had to be the sword on my back. More precisely, it was the feeling I got when my blade and I became one. I’d only managed to reach that mental zone a few times, but it was the desire to control that power at will, to be the unquestioned ruler of that realm, that drove me to stay alive. The reason I’d put points into sharpness and durability rather than quickness or accuracy was simple: the former were pure numerical increases, but the latter adjusted the system itself. They changed the sensation of swinging the sword. 
But in that case … 
What about the fencer on the frontier of the labyrinth? What was her core? I’d transported her outside of the dungeon (using means I could never tell her), but if I hadn’t been there, would she really have died? I could easily imagine her unconsciously getting to her feet as the next kobold approached, using her shooting-star Linear to dispatch the beast. 
What drove her to undergo such a ferocious string of battles? What had kept her alive up to this point? She must have some source of strength I could only imagine. 
“Maybe I should have paid Argo the Five hundred col,” I muttered, then shook my head and looked upward. 
The white-painted windmills that were the defining symbol of Tolbana had just a tinge of orange to them. It was a bit past three o’clock—time to grab a bite to eat before the undoubtedly long and tedious boss raid meeting. 
When the meeting started at four, things would get ugly. 
Today, for the first time, one hidden fissure between SAO players would come into clarity: the unbridgeable gap between new players and beta testers … 
There was only one piece of information that Argo the Rat refused to sell to others, and that was whether a person had been a beta tester or not. She wasn’t alone in that philosophy. All the former testers, who could recognize one another by name or voice, if not by face, intentionally avoided reaching out to each other. The previous encounter was no different. Both Argo and I knew the other was a beta tester, but we went light-years out of our way to never discuss it. 
The reason was simple: Being publicly outed as a beta tester could be fatal. 
Not because of monsters in a dungeon. Because if you wandered alone in the game map, you could be executed by a lynch mob of new players. They believed that the deaths of two thousand players within a month could be laid at the feet of the beta testers. 
And I couldn’t totally deny that charge.