Sword Art Online - Alternative Reality

SAO:AR Prologue

April 1st, 2023 – Floor 26 – Deluxe Inn at the main town of Vernac

"So that's it then? You want to break up the duo?"

My partner for the past 4 months stood right across from me in our inn room, her hazelnut brown eyes emitting a powerful and dangerous light after hearing my suggestion.

I started working with this fencer, Asuna, back at the beginning of December of last year. Originally, our duo was meant to be a temporary partnership, one in where after I taught her everything I knew, she would go on to reach heights that a Beater like me could never reach, a star shining in the night sky that would give everyone trapped in this floating prison hope for the future.

But instead, we had continued our duo up to this point, facing countless trials together on each floor as we slowly began conquering this castle. There were so many times I felt that I should have broken off our duo, that I was only dragging her down, preventing her from reaching her full potential. Yet, something deep down prevented those words from ever escaping my throat. Perhaps, at some point I believed that I might just be able to see her shinning at her brightest while still at her side...but that was a dream I should never have hoped for, a dream that if I had given up on, maybe things would have turned out for the better...

We were now on the 26th floor of the floating castle of Aincrad. After just 5 months, we had reached the quarter point, we were a quarter done with ending this death game and achieving our freedom, returning to the real world. Despite achieving that, there were no cheers in the streets of the main town, Vernac. The front runners were not out and about celebrating, but instead mourning, still trying to accept what just happened...

Just a few hours ago we had successfully cleared the 25th floor and defeated its floor boss, but the price we paid to do so was not something we planned on paying. The 25th floor itself, probably for being the quarter point of the castle, was hell. Traps and dangerous mobs were everywhere, there was a lack of towns and NPCs led to a lack of information and resting points. Just getting to the labyrinth cost us the lives of over a dozen players. Our morale was low, and tensions were running high, until the ALS (Aincrad Liberation Squad) leader, Kibaou manage to rally us for one final push with his distinctive Kansai accent, telling us "To git off yer assess and beat this dam floor!"

The labyrinth, despite being on a whole new level of difficulty, was cleared, and the scouting battles for the boss of this hellish floor that had claimed so many lives should have taken up the entirety of yesterday. Instead, Lind alongside his DKB (Dragon Knights Brigade), Agil and his Bro Squad, Klein and his Fuurinkazan, Argo the info deal, Asuna the level 37 Fencer, and lastly myself, Kirito, the level 38 Swordsman, all had to rush through the labyrinth in a desperate attempt to reach and Kibaou and his group who had decided to instead rush the boss.

We were a full raid party of 48 members, equal to the raiding party that Kibaou had led into the boss room, but by the time we got there, over half of the raiding party was wiped out. In the ensuing chaos, we all worked together, fighting to keep as many people alive as we could, but several more lives were claimed by the boss before I finally deal the last blow through its heart, if such a monster even possessed one. Despite the long battle finally being ended, the only noise that could be heard were the cries of Kibaou, as he screamed and cursed over the loss of his guild members.

From what Okoton, one of the few survivors and people I got along with in the ALS told me, was that Kibaou and the higher-ups of the ALS had received information about the boss that would allow them to beat it with ease and with no casualties and that this was their chance to bring back hope for everyone trapped in this floating prison. When I asked who got this information and where it came from, Okoton only looked down, saying that the people who knew were no longer with them...