Sword Art Online, SAO for short, is a virtual-reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game, a VRMMORPG.
Unlike the visuals-only effect of ordinary VR, once you put on the helmet you truly experience being present within the game world. Aside from pain—which is, of course, switched off—consciousness, touch, taste and the whole rest of it are all rendered near to real.
And the gameplay isn't only grinding mobs for levels. Players can fish freely, cook, save up to buy the house they want, forge weapons, trade with others and more—enough to make you want to hail Kayaba Akihiko, who created all of this, as a true genius.
Before November 2022, that would have been a fair thing to say. By now, no one truly believes they're playing a game anymore, and on average each person curses Kayaba Akihiko a good twenty-odd times a day in their heart.
On the first day SAO's official service went live, because the launch was limited, only a little over ten thousand players entered the game—only to discover the logout button had been removed. They found themselves trapped in this world.
Kayaba Akihiko then teleported every player to the Plaza in the Town of Beginnings and told them they had to clear this massive game before they could return to the original world.
Should anyone outside the game do something like forcibly remove the helmet, cut the network, or cut the power, that player's brain would be fried by high-powered microwaves—Kayaba Akihiko announced this to the outside world through the media. Even so, on the game's first day, 213 players still died this way because loved ones wouldn't heed the warnings.
Beyond that, "revival"—the thing most crucial to an RPG—was likewise forbidden. A player who died in the game would have their brain fried in reality all the same, meaning that to truly clear the game you fought with your life on the line.
And out in the world their bodies lay like vegetative patients, kept alive entirely by nutrient fluid. The game's food system, for all that it fully satisfied the palate, naturally couldn't feed nonexistent nutrition back into reality.
"Meow."
Yimi understood nothing of this game-world, real-world business. Back in Madoka's world, walking to and from school, Tomohisa would deliberately keep to one side to block her line of sight, so the young girl wouldn't suddenly take an interest in an arcade or an internet café.
Legs braced against the wooden post at the lakeside, using the pose for leverage, Yimi hauled hard on the rod in her hands and pulled up a fish of a decidedly strange color. It flopped and writhed on the ground—only to be scooped up without mercy by the kitty, who bit down on its head.
She didn't take a chunk out of it the way she'd imagined. The next second came a blue light-screen effect, and the fish vanished from her hands with a flash, replaced by a raw-fish-meat "material" that, no matter how you looked at it, couldn't be squared with the original.
Yimi stared down at the fish meat in her hands for a good while, then took the Mini-Hakkero and a pot out of her storage space. She'd meant to save the bother and eat it raw, but the sight of ready-made material changed her mind. She pulled out a kitchen knife to cut it into pieces—but the moment the blade touched the meat, there was that effect again, and neatly prepared sashimi was laid out before her.
This world was a bit unreasonable, but it did spare her a great deal of hassle. Another glance at the System's reorganization progress: already 26%, though its recovery had nothing whatsoever to do with time—the interval between each three-percent increase was different. Her gaze swept the 0/6 in the corner, and the ears hidden beneath Yimi's hat drooped.
She didn't want to do quests anymore. Newly arrived in a new world, crying with no one to comfort her—so the kitty had to learn to be strong on her own.
"Coo—"
"Shh, keep it down, Pina."
In the woods about ten meters from the riverbank, a middle-school-aged girl with brown twin-tails stared, unblinking, at Yimi's back. Yimi's just-drooped ears suddenly shot upright, and she turned her face toward that very direction. The girl—whose game ID was Silica—clapped a hand over her mouth and pressed her back to the tree.
From who-knew-where, word had spread—not exactly common knowledge, but the gist of it was that an urban legend about a Bugged NPC Murder Incident had begun circulating through the Middle Floors.
A boss disguised as an NPC, with a bugged, garbled data field, a little girl in a black-and-white witch outfit, the power to one-shot high-level players…
Even if it was most likely fake news dreamed up for amusement, she'd never in her life go seeking out something that terrifying! And yet, of all luck, she'd run smack into it. Wasn't it supposed to be deep in the great forest? Weren't bosses generally supposed not to leave their territory? Looking closely, there really was no cursor that belonged to a player.
Best to just slip away quietly and put this whole thing—
"What are you doing?" Yimi, having somehow made her way to Silica's side, looked up at her.
"I was just about to call the Assault Team to subjugate—" Halfway out, Silica clapped both hands over her mouth, instantly drenched in a cold sweat.
"Subjugate me?" Yimi turned the word over in her head.
"N-no, no, I mean—quest! Right, I came to see whether you had any quest to hand out to me. Guess you're not a quest NPC after all. Sorry to bother you, goodbye!"
Silica scooped up her pet little dragon and turned to flee this terrifying place. But Yimi stepped around to plant herself in front of the girl—far taller than she was—and narrowed her eyes at the little blue dragon perched atop Silica's head.
"Diego's lackey!"
She'd let her guard down. In the last world, Diego had sworn not to chase her—but Diego had never agreed to keep his subordinates from chasing the kitty! And this baffling woman, exactly like that pair of scumbags before, had called her an NPC!
Under Silica's terror-struck gaze, a BOSS HP bar unfurled beside Yimi.
"Wait! I really did just take you for a normal NPC!" Silica hurriedly shielded her little dragon, fumbling incoherently for a Teleport Crystal to get back to town.
Used up! Because this place was supposed to be a Safe Zone!
"Normal NPC? Quest?"
"Ah—b-because I'd never seen you here, and I—I really do love coming here for walks, you know."
Silica edged back in tiny, shuffling steps. She'd wanted to just bolt, but looking at the little shorty in front of her, she couldn't summon the slightest will to race her—in a game, the smaller the build, the higher the move speed. That was standard.
"So I figured maybe there was some hidden qu— r-right, you were fishing just now, weren't you? I thought you were an NPC who hands out a fishing quest, since I happen to be really good at that, haha… haha…"
Wait a moment—she was actually trying to play dumb and hoodwink a BOSS! And rattling off "NPC" at every turn, no less—when she wasn't even any good at fishing! But then, to be able to chat this easily, and with this kid showing no NPC marker of any kind… could she actually be some kind of glitched player?
"Do you want to help me fish?" Yimi, who had no idea what the girl was saying, simply went with her own interpretation, still eyeing the little dragon warily.
She placed no trust at all in anything that so much as smelled of Diego.
The HP bar beside Yimi vanished, and a moment later a prompt appeared in Silica's Quest Log.
Quest: Help @@ Fish 0/1
Quest Reward: /
Silica: "..."
The quest reward was actually blank? The description in the middle even had bug-garble in it, just like the rumors—and it was a first-floor difficulty-tier quest at that. This "fishing" was probably not really "fishing"!