Sword Art Online – Progressive - Volume 2 - Chapter 1

1 
THE FIRST FLOOR OF AINCRAD WAS AN “ANYTHING goes” floor, with no unifying design theme. The terrain was rich and varied, with fields, forests, wastelands, and canyons, not to mention numerous smaller towns and villages outside the main city. It added up to a welcoming atmosphere for new players, but now that the game was deadly, few people were in the mood to soak in the surroundings. 
The second floor, however, had a very clear, unified design. The land was covered with green grazing fields and multilayered flat-topped mountains, and the monsters within were all animal types. As a nod to the effort of beating the first floor, the wilderness of the second was not very difficult, which, combined with the visual style, gave it a laid-back, “pastoral” theme. Most players called it the “cow floor,” for obvious reasons. 
Next up was the unconquered third floor. 
As I climbed the spiral staircase from the second-floor boss chamber to the third-floor town, I clenched my fist and muttered, “In a way, this is where SAO really starts…” 
It was meant more as a reminder to myself, but my companion heard me and asked, “Really? Why is that?” 
I scratched my head and explained, “Well…the third floor is where human mobs first show up. The kobolds and tauruses from below were demihumans, so they could use simple sword skills, but they were still monsters, right? Well, some of the enemies ahead look indistinguishable from other players. You honestly wouldn’t be able to tell them apart without a color cursor. Just like NPCs, they can talk and use expert sword skills. Meaning…” 
I looked over my shoulder and fixed Asuna the fencer with a look. “This is where the real Sword Art Online begins. I read plenty of magazine interviews and articles on Akihiko Kayaba, the man who trapped us in here. He said that the term Sword Art refers to the light and sound of the clash of sword skill on sword skill—a concerto of life and death.” 
“…Oh…” 
The phrase that had given me shivers of excitement a year ago did not have any noticeable effect on Asuna. We continued walking up the stairs at a measured pace. Her next comment took me by surprise. 
“Does that mean he was already plotting this crime when he gave that interview?” 
“Umm…well, I guess it does.” 
On that fateful day five weeks ago, Kayaba summoned all the players of SAO into the center square of the Town of Beginnings and announced, “I created the NerveGear and SAO precisely in order to build this world and observe it. I have now achieved that aim.” 
If those words were true, then from the very first line Kayaba ever drew on a NerveGear diagram, he’d been envisioning this terrible crime as his ultimate goal. All of his statements that thrilled my young mind (well, only a year younger) now held a terrible double meaning. 
Asuna quietly murmured, “A concerto…of life and death. I wonder if he really meant that to refer to the sword art of player against humanoid enemies.” 
“Huh…? What do you mean?” 
It was my turn to be confused. I’d climbed up identical sets of spiraling staircases to the next floor nearly a dozen times between the beta and the full release, so it was familiar enough that I could continue to climb while facing backward. The only thing that differed between floors was the style of carvings on the blackened walls. A closer look always revealed some kind of thematic hint at the next floor’s contents, but I was concentrating on Asuna’s words at the moment. 
Her face serious, she whispered, “Maybe I’m overthinking this…but a concerto isn’t a performance where instruments form a pair to play against each other. That would be a duet.” 
“So what exactly is a concerto, then?” 
“The definition changes depending on the era, but at its most basic, it’s an orchestra acting as the background accompaniment to a soloist or small group of independent players. So it’s not one-on-one, but one-on-many, or few-on-many.” 
“One…against many…” I repeated and stopped myself before I asked if it could mean a player against a group of monsters. 
It was almost never the case that a single player faced off against a large collection of foes—say, ten or more. Without any magic spells that could attack a large area at once, and the closest sword skills merely adding a foot or two to the weapon’s reach, being surrounded by monsters in SAO meant certain death. 
That ironclad law was reflected in the game’s design, so nearly all monsters were solitary, or in groups no larger than three or four. As long as you didn’t run around intentionally drawing attention or hitting alarm traps, a single player would never encounter a large mass of enemies. Even if it happened, no one would be foolish enough to stand and fight. 
“In that case, there’s no battle in this world that actually corresponds to a real concerto. If anything, it might refer to a boss battle…but in that case, the boss would be the lead, and the players, the accompaniment,” I said with a wry chuckle. Asuna opened her mouth to respond, then shut it. After a brief pause, she grinned slightly. 
“I suppose so. I’m just overthinking this. More importantly, Kirito…” 
“Huh? What?” 
“Never mind, too late.” 
As soon as she said those words, the back of my head slammed against the thick stone door at the top of the stairs. 
“Nguh!” I grunted pitifully and lost my balance, hands waving wildly. I made sure to fall backward, sensing it would still be better than flopping forward and directly onto Asuna. 
But in that brief instant, the stone door that should have propped my back up had already opened, and I fell shrieking through the doorway to land directly on my butt atop the mossy paving stones—the momentous first step into the new, uncharted floor. 
The third floor of Aincrad. 
Its design theme was “forest,” but this was forest on a scale unlike the woods around Horunka on the first floor, or the southern area of the second floor. Even the smallest tree here had a trunk at least three feet across and towered nearly a hundred feet in the air. These vast, ancient trees stretched as far as the eye could see, and the golden beams of light that trickled through their endless branches and leaves was a magical sight. 
“Wow!” Asuna marveled, walking right past me as I writhed and clutched my tailbone. I spun around halfway on my rear end to take in the sight. She stopped ahead and spun around in the narrow band of light, drinking in the panorama of thick, endless forest. 
“Incredible…Just this sight was worth all of the trouble to get here!” 
The hood of her familiar wool cape was pulled back, so the glint of light reflecting off her long brown hair caught my eye. With her slender build and elegant beauty, Asuna looked more like a frolicking forest dryad than a human player. 
“…Yeah. It really was,” I murmured and got to my feet. I straightened my leather coat and stretched. Even the air seemed to be sweeter and moister here, full of rich phytoncides…I could imagine. 
I turned back to see that we’d just walked out of an ancient stone structure built into the roots of a particularly huge tree, the mouth of the staircase yawning and black. Within twenty minutes, the other frontline players would be wrapping up their tasks and coming out of this exit. 
“And now,” I murmured, opening my window and starting up an instant message to Argo the Rat. I told the information dealer that she should inform the public that the second floor had been conquered, and the teleport gate to the third floor would be open within an hour. She’d been present in the boss chamber but had disappeared before the fight was over, so this was just in case. 
The task set to me by Lind, leader of the raid party, was complete. I closed the window and took another look around the forest. 
I wanted to stand around and enjoy the feeling of satisfaction at reaching the third floor, but time was of the essence. Like any other new floor, there was shopping to be done, quests to undertake, and levels to gain. But before any of that, I had to confirm something with my temporary party member. 
I steeled myself for the task, sidled up to Asuna as she continued to soak in the scenery, and coughed politely. 
“Um, I hate to interrupt your leisure…” 
“…What is it?” 
She turned to me, a rare smile on her face. I drew her gaze north with the point of my index finger. A stone path leading away from the structure behind us split into a Y-intersection just twenty yards ahead. 
“If we turn right up there, it goes to the main city. The left side takes us through the forest for a while, and eventually to the next town.” 
“…I see.” 
“Normally, we ought to go to the city and activate the portal, but I’d prefer to leave that up to Lind and Kibaou’s teams, since they’ll be coming right up after us.” 
“……I see.” 
“Part of it is because I don’t want the attention, but the other part is that there’s a task we can take care of if we go down the left path. I realize both of those reasons are my own personal rationale, so…” 
The grin on her face began to fade. In fact, there was a threatening glare forming in her eyes. It finally dawned on me that if I chose my words poorly here, I would be earning myself the full and mighty wrath of one of Asuna’s bad moods—I just didn’t know the rules of how to avoid that. 
“…And?” she prompted, her voice cool. 
“Um…well…we do need to restock on supplies, so if you wanted to just go straight to the main city, I suppose we’d have to break up our party here…But of course, if you wanted to join me in tackling this quest in the forest, I wouldn’t try to convince you to reconsider…” 
“If you’re asking me if I don’t want to break up the party, then no, I have no problem with that. We’re both solo players, unless I’m sorely mistaken?” 
“Y-yes, ma’am.” 
“But this errand you’re talking about is best if taken care of first, I assume? In that case, I’ll join you—I hate being inefficient. Of course, if you’d rather kick me out of the party so you can reap the benefits all to yourself, I suppose I can’t stop you.” 
“N-no, no, I don’t want to be selfish at all. Besides, it’ll be more efficient for us as a group.” 
“Then let’s get going. I won’t need to restock and repair for a little while yet.” 
“G-great.” 
She turned on her heel and strode off down the path, her boots clicking on the stones. I hurried after her, inwardly deciding that I’d just barely slid in safe, though I had no idea what I was safe from exactly. 
If I’d known it would come to this, I would have talked to the girls in class more often, I silently rued, then snorted in denial. If I was playing a middle schooler with that kind of character build, I wouldn’t have been ready to log in to the retail version of SAO five seconds after the servers went online, and I’d never be walking through this fantastical forest with this fickle fencer in the first place. It was a pointless conjecture. 
Speaking of which… 
In the month that I’d been trapped in this castle, I’d been hell-bent on survival, on powering myself up through whatever means I could find. Had I ever even stopped to regret my decision to jump into Sword Art Online? 
Regret would be the normal choice. Anyone who didn’t regret getting stuck in here was insane. But no matter how far back I scrolled through my emotional event log, despite the presence of terror or homesickness, there were no hits for “regret.” 
So either I was insane, or the circumstances never gave me enough breathing room to even consider regretting my choice. If it was the latter, then the fencer strolling along ahead of me was part of those circumstances. I’d spent so much time catering to her whims and needs that perhaps regret and other negative emotions simply couldn’t find any purchase in my brain… 
No, don’t you dare start to thank her! She’s torn you a new one ten times more often than she’s ever shown any gratitude! 
I picked up my pace to draw even with my casual partner. 
Based on my beta experience, I knew that for the thirty minutes or so between the previous floor’s boss’s being slain and the teleport gate being activated, the spawn rate of monsters was drastically decreased. 
I suspected that it was a gift to those weary champions, to ensure that they didn’t get wiped out by mobs before they could reach the gate of the next floor’s main town. Sadly, that effect was only active around the town itself. 
After five minutes of walking through the forest, I sensed a shift in the surrounding air, even before my Search skill went off. The beautiful, fairy-tale forest seemed to grow harder and more menacing with every step. 
“Listen up, Asuna. The enemies here aren’t any tougher than the ones on the second floor. They’re mostly animals and plants, too, so they won’t use sword skills on us,” I explained. She nodded silently. 
“But there’s one pattern all the mobs here employ: They’re going to try to draw us into the forest and away from the path during battle. If you charge forward every time they give you an opening, you’ll be totally lost by the time you win the fight.” 
“Can’t you just open your map and see the places that you’ve walked already?” 
“The thing is…” I waved my right hand to open the menu, flipped to the map, and enabled visible mode to show it to Asuna. 
“Oh…It’s all dim,” she remarked. Indeed, while normally most of the map would be grayed out with clear little 3-D models of where we’d already been, the current map screen was dim and hazy, as if obscured by mist. Even squinting closely at it did not reveal the location of the path. 
“This area has a name: the Forest of Wavering Mists. The map’s hard to read, and occasionally you walk into mist so thick, you can barely see a thing. So the ironclad rule around here is, don’t leave the path or your party. Keep that in mind at all times.” 
“Understood. So why don’t you give me a demonstration?” 
“Huh?” 
“Something’s watching us back there.” 
I slowly turned around. Off the path, at the very lip of the woods, stood—no, grew—a thin, withered tree. Its pale yellow trunk was only a foot and a half thick and six feet tall, far smaller than the behemoth specimens all around. But pale lights shone in two small knotholes in the bark, and the branches stretching out to the sides waved like slender claws. 
The dried-out tree and I stared at each other for several seconds. Eventually it pulled a creaking root out of the ground and stepped forward. Next, the left root pulled out for a step, and it began to walk toward me. The wobbling steps soon turned to a full-speed dash. A third knothole opened beneath the other two, and the tree warbled a howl. 
“Molooo!” 
The Treant Sapling had several special abilities, one of which was that when it stood perfectly still, it wouldn’t set off my Search skill. I was so absorbed in my explanation that I must have walked right past it. 
Constant vigilance! I admonished myself, reaching over my shoulder to pull my beloved Anneal Blade +6 from its sheath. 
Three minutes later, I’d cut off both of the arm branches, and Asuna had penetrated its mouth knothole with her Wind Fleuret +5. The treant moaned sadly and exploded into polygonal shards. 
We fist-bumped in celebration and put away our swords. Despite my warning, I’d fallen for the tree’s deceptive flipping of its front and rear sides, and wandered five yards into the forest. That wasn’t a big problem now, but when the mists were out, even ten yards’ distance could be disastrous. 
As she walked down the old stone path, Asuna said, “I feel a bit…guilty about that.” 
“Oh?” 
“Well, that tree monster was a sapling, right? It’s not very eco-friendly to cut it down like that.” 

“M-maybe, but you wouldn’t be saying that if you saw the Elder Treant that he’d grow into. You’d be saying we gotta chop that sucker down now while we got the chance!” 
“…Don’t talk like that. I get enough of it from Kibaou,” she warned. 
We returned to the path and shared a short sigh of relief. The angle of the golden light from overhead was changing already, but we had plenty of time until nightfall. 
“So, it should be right around here…” 
“What is? Oh, that task you said you wanted to take care of.” 
“Yes. We’re just initiating a quest…but the starting location of the NPC is a bit random. How are your ears, Asuna?” 
I gave her a glance and saw that the fencer was backing away, holding her hands over her cute little pink ears. 
“…Is that what you’re into, Kirito? You have an ear thing?” 
“N-n-no! I was referring to your hearing, not the shape of your ears…” 
“I’m just kidding. Besides, this situation has nothing to do with our hearing. We’re listening with our brains, not our eardrums.” 
“Ah, good point. Well, let’s try to find it. If only one of us had the Eavesdropping skill.” 
I straightened my back and cupped my palms behind my ears, knowing it was probably pointless. Asuna followed my example. 
“So what sound am I listening for? Don’t tell me it’s a single leaf falling.” 
“Don’t worry, it’s not a natural sound. We’re trying to find the clanging of sword on sword.” 
Asuna looked startled for a moment, then nodded her understanding. 
We stood in the middle of the path, our backs pressed together, focusing in all four directions with four ears. I often ignored them, but there was actually quite a lot of atmospheric noise in the game. The whistling of the breeze and rustling of leaves, scampering critters and chirping songbirds—I shut each and every one of those sounds out of my mind, searching for the harsh, artificial clang of metal on metal. 
“…!” 
Asuna and I twitched together. I turned to my right, and Asuna to her left…to the southwest. There was a faint but distinct clashing of blades coming from that direction. 
“Let’s go,” I said, striding forward. Asuna pulled my coat from behind. 
“Is it safe to go into the forest?” 
“Don’t worry, as long as we start the quest safely, we’ll be able to return to the path.” 
“…And what if we don’t?” 
“Not a problem—I have a camping set. Let’s go!” 
As I trotted off into the woods, I heard a skeptical “Camping?” It quickly turned to footsteps. 
Away from the stone path, the ground was soft and mossy, with just enough give to be noticeable, but not uncomfortable to walk on. I wove around trunks left and right, trailing the source of the sound. Coming across any monsters here would disrupt our search, so I gave any cursors that popped up in my Search range a wide berth. The last thing I wanted to see was another treant, and fortunately we did not run across any. 
After less than five minutes of jogging, the clanging of metal was much louder than before, joined by shouts and screams. Two NPC cursors appeared directly ahead, followed by the flashes of colliding swords peeking through the branches. 
One more massive tree trunk, and we’d be at the battleground. I stopped before we rounded the tree and held Asuna back with an outstretched arm, holding up my index finger in a shushing motion. We leaned around the trunk to peer at the same time. 
Two silhouettes were locked in fierce combat in the middle of a wide clearing. 
One was a tall man wearing gleaming metal armor of gold and green. Even at a glance, it was clear that his longsword and buckler were high-level equipment. His long, platinum blond hair was tied at the back, and his face was that of a dashing Scandinavian lead actor in a Hollywood film. 
The other combatant stood out in stark relief, with black-and-purple armor. The curved saber and small kite shield were dark in color but equally powerful. The fighter’s hair was short and smoky purple, which combined with darkly tanned skin, was strikingly beautiful. Luscious red lips and a swelling curve on the breastplate made it clear that the dark fighter was a woman. 
“Haah!” 
The blond man let out a fierce roar and swung down his sword. 
“Shaa!” 
The purple-haired woman struck back with her saber. A fierce clang echoed throughout the clearing, and the flashing light effect lit the deep forest for an instant. 
“A-are those…really NPCs…?” Asuna murmured below me, her voice filled with wonder. 
I understood how she felt. Their precise movements and realistic expressions were so lifelike, it was hard to see them as soulless avatars under the control of the game system. But… 
“Technically, they’re classified as mobs. Look at their ears.” 
“Huh…? Oh! They’re both pointy. Which means…” 
“The man is a forest elf. The woman is a dark elf. Look above their heads.” 
Asuna’s eyes traveled up a bit. She murmured in surprise again. 
Both warriors had a golden ! mark above their heads. That was proof that they were quest-initiating NPCs. Normally, walking up and starting a conversation would automatically open up a quest log. But in this case… 
“What does it mean that they both have quest marks and are fighting each other…?” 
“It’s simple—you can only accept one. I need you to make a very important choice here, Asuna,” I said. She took her eyes off the elves and looked at me. 
“A choice?” 
“Yeah. The quest they’ll give us isn’t a one-off quest, or even a series of quests. It’s the first major campaign quest in the game. It lasts through several floors and won’t wrap up until we get to the ninth.” 
“N—” 
Ninth?! she was going to scream, but clamped her mouth shut in time. Her hazelnut-brown eyes were wide with shock. Secretly enjoying her surprise, I added another bombshell. 
“And if you screw up along the way, there are no do-overs. No switching to the opposing side, either. The choice you make here is going to last us until the ninth floor of Aincrad.” 
“Excuse me…Couldn’t you have told me this earlier…?” Her face went from anger to indecision. “Wait, opposing side? Does that mean those two elves…?” 
“Exactly. We have to choose one to save and one to fight. Which one will it be: black or white?” 
Asuna gave me a scorchingly appraising look. “This isn’t a real choice, is it? Maybe if this was a regular game, but not now. We have to follow the same route you took in the beta. In fact…I’m positive that I can guess exactly which one you chose.” 
Now it was my turn to clam up uncomfortably. Her cold gaze bored into my face, and she spoke with absolute conviction. 
“You chose the dark elf lady, didn’t you?” 
“Y-yes, I did…b-but not because she was a lady. Because she was dark.” 
But I knew that excuse wouldn’t fly. Asuna stood up straight and turned away in a huff. 
“Well, fine. I would never take the side of a man to cut down a woman, anyway. Let’s help out the dark elf and defeat the forest elf. Agreed?” She hurried to pop out of our hiding spot, but I grabbed the back of her hood first. 
“W-wait, wait, wait. One important thing first!” 
“What?” 
“Well, um…Just so you know, even if we help the dark side, there’s no way we can beat the forest elf.” 
“Wh…what?!” 
Her eyes went wide. I put a hand on her slender shoulder to calm her down. “As you can probably tell from the tough-looking gear, they’re both elite mobs. You don’t find Forest Elven Hallowed Knights or Dark Elven Royal Guards until the seventh floor. No matter how much of a safety margin we’re working with, we only just made it to the third floor. We can’t win.” 
“Then…what do we do? I mean…if we die in this fight…” 
“Don’t worry, there’s no death if we lose. Once we’re down half our HP, the fighter we’re helping will use her secret attack to win. We just have to keep focused on defense. Don’t panic when he starts chopping our HP away, just stay calm and wait for the lady to do her thing. Losing control and running around is the worst thing that can happen here—you never know when you might pull in a nearby mob by accident.” 
“…All right.” 
“Good.” I patted her shoulder and let go. “Then we’ll jump out on the count of three. The quest starts automatically when we get near, so just stay next to me.” 
She nodded in understanding, and I lined up next to her, counted to three, and said a silent apology. 
There was one thing I hadn’t told Asuna. When we jumped in to save the dark elf—her name was Kizmel—she would unleash her forbidden art to save us from the forest elf knight, dying in the process. If we chose the opposite route and helped the forest elf, he would do the same thing. No matter the choice, both elves would die in this clearing, and we’d be embroiled in the war of the two races. That was the start of a long, long campaign…an epic tale. 
“…Two, one, go!” 
We leaped out into the clearing. The battling elves looked at us momentarily, then jumped backward to keep distance between them. Each of the ! marks turned into a ? to indicate a quest in progress. 
“What is humankind doing in this forest?” the male elf demanded. 
“Do not interfere! Begone from this place!” ordered the dark elf. 
We had the option of leaving, of course. But that was beside the point of being here. Asuna and I made eye contact, drew our swords—and leveled the points at the gaudy forest elf’s chest. 
His handsome features grew cold and furious. The yellow event-related mob cursor gained a blinking red border, a warning that the target was about to turn aggressive. 
“You fools…For the crime of siding with this dark elf scum, your blood will quench my sword’s thirst.” 
“That—” 
“That’s right, but it’s you who will perish, you wife-abusing pig!” Asuna retorted, stealing my one-liner and adding a dubious charge of domestic abuse. The forest elf’s cursor shifted from pale yellow to a menacing dark crimson. Before I could even note the foreboding tint of red, the man put on a beautiful but haughty smile. 
“So be it! I will start with you, humans.” 
“Remember, just focus on defense!” I called out to Asuna, focusing on his longsword. 
Of course, we’ll only last three minutes at best, I silently added. But when I glanced over at my partner’s face, I felt a distinct sense of unease. Even in the short time I’d known her, I could recognize the expression she was wearing now: the one that said she was dead set on something. 
“Um…focus…defense?” 
“I know, I know!” she snapped, but there was a ferocious glint to the rapier clutched in her right hand. 
Twenty minutes later. 
“This…can’t be happening…” the forest elf muttered as he collapsed to the ground. 
“This…can’t be happening…” I repeated, blinking in surprise as I checked to confirm that his HP bar did indeed read zero. In contrast, both Asuna and my HP bars were at half, just before we would reach the yellow zone. During the beta, I’d been in a party of four, and we’d been thrashed in just two minutes. 
“…Well. He wasn’t so tough, after all.” 
I looked over to see Asuna, back straight despite her obvious fatigue. A few feet to her left was the dark elf, dark saber and gaze pointed right at the fallen foe. 
Ya shoulda died, missy, echoed a mysterious, unsourced phrase inside my head. Kizmel the dark elf knight looked up at me. 
Her onyx eyes seemed to be filled with shock, bewilderment, and an unanswered question of what she should do next. But that had to be my imagination. 
I prayed it was my imagination.