“…and the NerveGear will destroy your brain.”
✦ ✦ ✦
I felt an instant urge to burst into a high-pitched laughter bubbling up from my gut and had to stifle the impulse. In the upper left-hand corner of my vision sat a thin bar, glowing blue. When I trained my eyes on the bar, the numbers 342/342 popped up next to it.
My hit points. My remaining life.
If that number hit zero, I would actually die—the game console would fry my brain with microwaves and kill me on the spot, according to Kayaba.
Yes, this was a game. A game in which my life hung on the line. A game of death.
During the two-month beta test, I must have died a hundred times. When that happened, you popped back to life with a cackle in Blackiron Palace to the north of the square, free to rush back out to the battlefield.
That’s how RPGs work. You die and die, learning lessons each time and honing your skills. But now we couldn’t do that? Die once, and we were dead forever? Without even the option of quitting the game?
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered.
Who would possibly venture out into the dangers of the wilderness under those circumstances? Everyone was bound to stay within the safety of town.
But as though anticipating the skepticism of all players present, Kayaba issued his next challenge.
“There is only one condition through which you can be freed from this game. Simply reach the hundredth floor at the pinnacle of Aincrad and defeat the final boss who awaits you there. In that instant, all surviving players will be able to safely log out once again.”
A moment of sheer silence.
I finally realized the meaning of his earlier phrase, “Conquer the summit of this castle.” He wasn’t referring to just any castle; he was referring to Aincrad itself, the mammoth floating fortress on whose very bottom floor we now stood, ninety-nine floors stacked above our heads.
“Clear the hundredth floor?” Klein shouted abruptly. He clambered to his feet and shook his fist in the air. “W-we can’t possibly do that! I heard the entire group of beta testers barely got through the very start of the game!”
He was right. A thousand players took part in SAO’s beta test, and when the two-month period was over, we’d only cleared the sixth floor. True, there were nearly ten times that number taking part in the game now, but how long would it take to reach a full hundred floors?
My guess was that the entire square was wrestling with the same apprehension. The silent tension shifted into low rumblings. But I wasn’t hearing sounds of fear or despair. Most likely, the majority of players here couldn’t make up their minds whether this was true danger or simply a flashy opening ceremony held in poor taste. Kayaba’s statements were so bizarre and dreadful to comprehend that the story lacked credibility.
I tilted my head upward, glaring at the empty robe, desperately trying to adjust to this new reality.
I couldn’t log out. I couldn’t get back to my real room, my real life. The only way that could happen was if someone reached the top of this castle and defeated the final boss. And if at any point my HP reached zero, I would die. Real death. I would cease to exist.
But…
No matter how hard I tried to accept this information as truth, I simply couldn’t. Just five or six hours ago, I’d eaten my mother’s home-cooked lunch, spoken to my sister, and climbed the stairs to my room. And now I couldn’t go back? Could this actually be happening?
The red robe once again preempted the thoughts of all present, sweeping its white glove and continuing in a voice devoid of emotion.
“Finally, let me prove to you that this world is now your one and only reality. I’ve prepared a gift for all of you. You may find it in your item storage.”
Without thinking, I made the two-fingered downward swipe to pull open the menu. Others around me made the same motion, the square filling with electronic chiming sounds. When I hit the inventory tab on the menu screen, I noticed something new at the top of the list.
It was labeled HAND MIRROR. Curious, I tapped the name and selected the MATERIALIZE button from the list of options. With a sparkling sound effect, a small square mirror popped into being.
I reluctantly picked up the mirror, but nothing happened. All I saw reflected in the surface was the painstakingly crafted face of my virtual avatar. Tilting my neck, I glanced at Klein. Like me, the chiseled samurai stood staring into his own mirror.
Then…
A brilliant white light enveloped Klein and several other characters nearby. In the next instant, my vision went blank as the same light surrounded me. A few seconds later, it faded, returning the same old sights.
Except…
This wasn’t the Klein I recognized. The mismatched plate armor, ugly bandanna, and spiky red hair were the same as before. It was the face that had changed. The slender eyes were now bulging and round. The slender bridge of his nose was a beak. And his fine cheeks and chin were now covered in scraggly facial hair. If his former avatar was a gallant young samurai, the new Klein was a wandering ronin—or worse yet, a bandit.
Forgetting everything for an instant, I muttered, “Who…are you?”
The man before me returned the question. “Me? Who are you?”
And in a flash of enlightenment, I understood the meaning of Kayaba’s “gift.” Raising my own mirror again, I stared at the reflection within.
Black hair in an inoffensive style. Gentle eyes set beneath long bangs. A soft, rounded face that still got me confused for a sister instead of a brother when strangers saw me side by side with my sister.
There was none of Kirito’s previous heroic look. The face I saw in the mirror…
…was the real-life face I’d been trying to escape.
“Whoa…it’s me…” Klein murmured into his mirror, flabbergasted. We faced each other again and shouted in unison.
“You’re Klein?”
“You’re Kirito?”
The voice-filtering function had apparently stopped working, shifting the sound of our voices as well, but that was the least of our concerns.
Both mirrors slipped through our fingers, hitting the ground simultaneously with a faint crack. A quick glance around showed that the prior gathering of wildly colored, beautiful fantasy characters had changed dramatically. It was as though someone had taken the crowd of a real video game convention and given them swords and armor to wear. Even the ratio of men to women had gone frightfully askance.
How was this possible? We had all gone from our virtual avatars to our real-life appearances. It was still presented in polygonal form with a few slight details felt out, but the degree of accuracy was startling. It was like I’d undergone a full-body scan.
✦ ✦ ✦
