SAO: Beyond the Digital Sea // A Sword Art Online Fanfiction

Fairy Dance Arc: Ch 2

January 2025

Ever tried to find a needle in a haystack? No? How about a very low resolution picture of a place in what totals to thousand of kilometers of lines of code for a VR game? Neither task is pleasing to undertake. But when you don't have alternatives, you have to do what you have to do.

Following the split-up from the hospital, Saruhiko headed straight for his room at his parent's net cafe. It was still not fully on business, with his parents not yet moving back into the city, but he had most of his tools and equipment there, and as such, it would serve as the lab for the operation going forward.

"Right. First the AI daughter or whatever."

Upon exchanging contacts, Kazuto was adamant to be able to see 'Yui', or so he called her, at some point, meaning Saruhiko had to put this AI somewhere safe and easily accessible for now. Alongside it, he has essentially copied the logs from SAO as the logging out session was underway.

"In theory, I should be able to find the logs regarding changing the sessions as opposed to termination.", he scratched the side of his temple by reflex.

Ideally, it'd be best to cross reference a list of players that woke up with the list of all usernames from the game, to get a statistic of who is still stuck and if there's some pattern to it. But such a list of private medical records is unlikely to be handed to him, a mere student. So he had to cut some corners. So for now, checking logs from the last day of the game online is where it's at.

"Any session rerouting should have the IP address specified, so I should at least be able to pinpoint and confirm if the session indeed coincides with the company running ALO."

He froze slightly, entertaining the thought of that being true. Misaki already assured him it couldn't be the case of his parents being involved. Yet they're at the forefront of running the company...

"If it is someone from inside, they gotta be someone really trusted to be able to leisurely do this under his boss' nose."

But that would be something to tackle only after it's confirmed who they're supposedly really dealing with here, something yet to be assessed.

But unlike Saruhiko's methodical approach to things, Kazuto Kirigaya was more of an impatient spirit. Right after the hospital visit, he headed back to his SAO friend Agil to see if there's been any more sightseeings of this mysterious blurred picture. While that led nowhere, it only increased Kirito's desire to dive straight into the game. He and the other 2 weren't going to agree with such a handfisted attempt, but for now, it was the only clue he had and the only thing he could realistically do.

But herein lies a fatal flaw in his makeshift plan. ALO is a massive game in itself. And even if one could master the time necessary to search its every nook and cranny, doing so at level 1 would certainly be impossible. And he had no time for said exploration to be that vast either. Hence why he resorted to a plea from his brother-in-law.

"I told you to not call me that, damn it!", Misaki roared in his room, cringing at the boy over the phone.

"You said you played ALO for almost a year in an attempt to crack SAO, didn't you? What level were you when you stopped?"

"What? Close to the cap level. But how will that help you right now? I thought we agreed to wait for Saruh-"

"We don't have that much time. Who knows how long it will take it to find the logs? We have to do something now."

Kirito was adamant, and frankly, Misaki couldn't care less about his account being used by someone else, as ALO was only a time sink for him. But he had a more fundamental problem with the proposal.