Sword Art Online – Progressive - Volume 2 - Chapter Aft

AFTERWORD 
Hello, this is Reki Kawahara. Thanks for reading Sword Art Online Progressive 2. 
Since we’re safely under way by now, I think it’s time to admit that this insane concept of following the conquest of Aincrad from the very first floor onward did not actually begin in this exact form. 
As viewers of the SAO anime series from July to December 2012 know, the anime reordered the events of Aincrad into a more cohesive timeline. But in my original novel, the early parts of Aincrad were basically skipped over entirely. It starts with the first day of the game in December 2022, then jumps ahead six months to April 2023, when Kirito meets the Moonlit Black Cats. 
This would be so much of a gap between the first and second episode, it was suggested that I write a plot that at least covers the conquering of the first floor. So I ended up producing a novella from Kirito and Asuna’s first meeting to the boss. I fondly (?) remember the pale look on the producers’ faces when I brought back twice the pages they needed, but at any rate, that was the genesis of “Aria of a Starless Night” from the first volume. 
In essence, that was the end of my job, but once I finished “Aria,” I was still left wondering what had happened to Kirito and Asuna after that. As I wrote in the last volume’s afterword, I just wanted to see what our two heroes (and Argo, and Agil, and Kibaou) would do on the second floor. Of course, if I started on that, it would cause all kinds of contradictions with the main series, and I wasn’t sure what to do for a while. 

But it’s the author’s nature not to be able to stop once he’s found something to write…so I scrawled the “Rondo of a Fragile Blade” in a dazed trance, and it too ended up far longer than I expected. Soon I learned that I’d be able to put out both “Aria” and “Rondo” in a single book, in October 2012. So in many ways, the Progressive series was the product of some unplanned circumstances. There’s no other way I would have found the determination to write about all hundred floors of Aincrad from the start—no matter how much that desire might have existed within me. 
Of course, now that I’ve started, there’s no turning back to the Town of Beginnings! So at long last, here is the third-floor story, “Concerto of Black and White.” As I announced last volume, this story’s theme was campaign quests, but I’m sad to admit that I became so focused on Kizmel the NPC that the latter part of the quest had to be very quickly wrapped up. 
While writing it, I was struck by how strange MMORPG quests really are. In a single-player RPG, at least your character is born into that universe and goes on an adventure, so challenging these various quests makes a kind of sense. But the player-characters in MMOs always have a bit of a stranger-in-a-strange-land vibe to them. They seem to take on more of the player’s personality…I do get that feeling from actual MMOs, but in SAO, this fictional VRMMO, the characters are the players. Kirito and Asuna are visitors from the “foreign” realm of the real world and can tackle the quests of Aincrad as such. I wrote “Concerto” while pondering what they would feel and think. As a natural consequence of that, I had to write a little bit about how Aincrad itself came to be, and I’ll reveal more of that backstory as we go along. After all, that campaign still has a long way to go. 
The story of the fourth floor will probably come next year, but I still intend to follow Kirito and the gang all the way to the hundredth floor, so I hope you tag along. The next volume of SAO proper is the fourteenth, which starts with the result of Kirito’s duel with the Integrity Knight Eugeo. Hope you check it out! 
Once again, I must extend super-thanks to my illustrator abec for providing super-cool, super-exciting illustrations despite her super-tough schedule, Mr. Kurusu for turning my nonsense scribbles into that super-beautiful map, and as usual, my beleaguered editors, Mr. Miki and Mr. Tsuchiya. And to all of you readers, for picking up my thirtieth published book, a truly heartfelt thanks!! I’ll see you again next year!! 
Reki Kawahara—October 2013