“You know, it’s been two years, and none of you have ever told me about SAO.” Suguha looks at Kazuto, Asuna, and Joshua as they sit around a table at the Kirgayas’ residence. It is one of the few times Kazuto’s home is the place to hang out, not Joshua’s much more spacious house. But since it is easier for guests to come to the Kirigayas than for Kazuto and Suguha to hope their newest resident, the artificial fluctlight Alice Zuberg, to act normal and make the trip to Asuna and Joshua’s part of town.
“It’s not exactly something we just talk about amongst ourselves either,” Kazuto responds. “I mean, we do have good memories, but there are many bad memories. Besides, that information is out there.”
“But… I mean, I’ve read the book, so of course I know some things, but… What about you four?” Suguha glances at Joshua, then at the girl sitting on the other side of him. “You didn’t really talk much about Koharu, neither of you did, but especially you. But now that she’s alive, now I’m curious about the four of you.”
Alice nods her head. “She has a point. Your sister not knowing an important part of your life after this long is just cruel.”
Joshua folds his arms. “Oh, so you told Selka about yourself, Miss Integrity?”
“Will you stop calling me that? By Stacia’s mercy, why do people like you?”
“I have a great personality.”
Koharu snorts and giggles. “Not at first. You were mean to everyone except to me. As a matter of fact, Alice, you have never seen Joshua and Asuna argue. Suguha, you may have. But compared to back then, this is nothing.”
Kazuto chuckles. “Right. Koharu and I had a bet on who would kill each other first. I technically won that bet since Asuna did ‘die’ in SAO.”
Joshua erupts in laughter. “You bet on me surviving longer and potentially killing Asuna? And I won? Suck on that, Lightning Flash!”
Asuna clenches her teeth and furiously turns on Kazuto. “What? You bet against me! I would have Joshua praying to let me have mercy on him! As a matter of fact, you weren’t all like yourself either, jerk!”
“So,” Alice says as she looks to Koharu, “only Koharu was a decent human being in this place called Aincrad. Somehow, that seems correct.”
Asuna sighs. “Well, she wasn’t the ‘Kindred Assassin’ for nothing. But you couldn’t help but be kind if you had two jerks around you for several weeks.”
Koharu smiles. “That, and a stubborn Asuna… And now that I think about it, Kazuto, Joshua, and I started similarly. We knew each other on day one, split, unknowingly worked with Argo, and didn’t meet again until the raid meeting. But Asuna, besides the one time we did encounter you, we don’t know much of you before that meeting.”
Kazuto raises his eyebrow. “Wait, you met them first?”
Asuna sighs. “Yes, though not officially. Well, I guess I better start then. The story of four of SAO’s best players, and how they came to be.”
Suguha gasps and clasps her hands. “Yes! Finally!”
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In terms of ambition, this might be the most ambitious story I'm writing since my first one seven years ago.
Welcome to Progressive Factor. This tale will...well, I know where it starts. But depending on if you've read the Progressive novels, the Progressive manga, played Integral Factor, and/or watched the anime, the story will jump around in details. For example, if you just watched the anime, you're gonna be lost for a moment, then be lost completely after that moment. If you're a novel reader, you'll see parts of the novel, same for the manga readers and IF players. The story is set up to incorporate the novel, manga, and IF material with, of course, some original stuff. I think this chapter is completely manga save for one minor change which is my doing.
And now that I'm bringing this over to Wattpad from Fanfiction, there might be a few moments in the "present day" parts that might be confusing because...between Blacksmith and Warrior, which I finally completed bringing over, there are 5 other stories leading up to those specific parts, but the meat and potatoes are within the early Aincrad days. I think it'll be fine.
But I haven't decided on an ending. I knew, if I ever wrote the Aincrad story, I wanted to end at the finale of the Elf War Quest, which really got me into Integral Factor when I started playing it. It has some meaning to me. So far, I think Progressive is on Floor 7, so I end it long before then or continue with Integral Factor's version of the quest. The latter is my current plan for now. So far, writing from three different yet congruent sources is not all too bad, just depends on who perspective I want. Asuna's will dominate the story, but you'll get the other three's POV as well. In terms of events of the story, I prefer the manga's order, so for the most part, I'll follow that sequence of events.
Enjoy the mass upload of thd first 6 chapters of Floor 1, see you all soon for Floor 2 and beginning of 3.
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Two years from now, after a climb of 75 levels and 40% of the player base dead, four teenagers will be remembered as heroes amongst heroes.
Later on, in other worlds, they’ll be known as powerful fairies, sword wielders in a world of guns, AR masters, gods and goddesses, and kings and queens. But their legend is rooted in simple beginnings, for before they would be known by the names that stick with them forever, they were four simple children from four different walks of life.
The one who will be known as the Black Swordsman probably has the most likely rise to heroic fame. He’s fourteen years old now, in the middle of his first year of junior high school. He lives with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, but due to never knowing the truth of his real parent’s death, he has called them “Dad”, “Mom”, and “Sister”. Learning the truth a few years ago has put a damper on his life. He quit kendo after two years and began to create a distance between him and his sister.
Ever since he was a kid, electronics has been his fascination, possibly an imprint of his aunt on him. He almost built a functioning system when he was a kid, and like many kids around his age, games were a source of passing time. While his social life deteriorated, his virtual life was just beginning, coming into form earlier this year with the release of a full-dive virtual reality device, the NerveGear, and its premier game, Sword Art Online. Months before release, he would become one of a 1,000 beta testers to explore the first ten floors of the floating castle, and with other top players, make it to the top.
The one who will become the Crimson Warrior has the most fortunate beginning with a downward twist. Born to the heir of a giant Japanese robotics company and his African American college sweetheart, the boy has always been at the top of life. Money, no problem. Grades, not even an issue. Friends...well, there were plenty, but nothing to brag about. He may have had the throne, but it doesn’t mean he enjoyed it. As a matter of fact, he quite despised it. Yet he found a ray of light in a young girl who’d become his best friend for many of their growing years until her family moved to Japan two years ago.
Since then, the boy has passively held hate anger at his circumstances. He hated the standard of living he was born into, the decorum that came with it, the falsehoods of people around him, and eventually, the business he is to inherit one day. With the one person who treated him as a person gone, he found some solace in the virtual world, and it held him together after a sudden move to Japan earlier in the year. Not making many real-life friends, he too found a jump in virtual life with the NerveGear and Sword Art Online’s beta. While not necessarily one of the top, he was a great player in the game, resigning to have his fun than dash the higher floors. That decision led him to encounter the future Black Swordsman and Kindred Assassin on the last day of the beta.
The one who will become the Kindred Assassin has the most unlikely background to her rise. The eldest of two children, her family owns a chain of resorts all over Japan. Because of this, the girl could easily be found spending her late spring to early fall at the poolside, and the other times attending to some other athletic activity. Due to her interest in athleticism, she joined the swim team and track and field team as soon as she was able to in middle school. She found great success in whatever she did, and she enjoyed it thoroughly.
When the NerveGear was released, she managed to gain one, but haven’t ever played an electronic game before, she was surprised when she was selected as one of SAO’s thousand beta players. She found the world to be fun, but her combat performance suffered. Due to her being surrounded in a dungeon one day, she encountered the future Crimson Warrior and Black Swordsman who saved her, and the former lingering to help her out more before the beta’s end. The two of them promised to meet again in the official release, and even reunited with the other boy before the game turned into a living hell.
But the story doesn’t start with either of those three, but with our second heroine, Lightning Flash, the one who never played the beta or a game, physical or virtual, in her life. Like the Crimson Warrior and Kindred Assassin, she was born into wealth, and like the other girl, didn’t really live much by it...or anything, for that matter. Her entire life was rarely spent wasting time with fun or friends, but filled in academia, a curse her mother inflicted on her. To be the best student, to get into the best schools, to get the best education, that was her life,
But her unlucky entrapment in SAO occurred due to her curiosity. Wondering what this virtual reality game was like, the girl borrowed her brother’s NerveGear on that fateful day, and like the three above, became permanently trapped in Aincrad. Their freedom lies ninety-nine levels above them, with no other way out except death. For a month, our four heroes, on three separate paths, strived to get stronger and stronger to survive or die trying.
Today, almost two weeks after Akihiko Kayaba trapped them and 10,000 others, they’re just known as Kirito, Jaymes, Koharu, and Asuna. Their real story begins on the first floor, far outside the Town of Beginnings, just two weeks before Aincrad’s fate would have its first ray of light...
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Part 1: An Implausible Game, An Even More Implausible Party
Asuna
“If I keep fighting like this, the day will come when I finally collapse. But until that moment, I’m going to keep running so I can prove that I gave everything I had. Then I’ll disappear, burn away in the atmosphere, like a fleeting shooting star.”
“November, 19th, 2022. Saturday.” Asuna forces a sigh as she rolls out of bed and woefully gazes out the window. Almost two weeks to the day since she became one of 10,000 players trapped in SAO, but the date itself bears more meaning than counting how long she’s been here. “Today is the day of the unified mock test.”
Seeing no purpose in staying in bed, Asuna gathers herself and prepares for another day on the first floor of AIncrad. As of today, no one has advanced the game past the first floor, not even the beta testers. Of course, who would want to? Asuna has never played a game before, but she’s sure that, if this was a normal game, the best players would have progressed by now. Normal doesn’t describe SAO anymore, not since its creator, Akihiko Kayaba, declared it a death game. The only way out is to either die or ascend and beat all one hundred floors. The possibility of death is the only thing delaying the progression, in her opinion.
So as long as Asuna survives, she’ll be content.
“Come again,” the merchant says as Asuna buys a loaf of black bread. She doesn’t understand the logic behind it, but for some reason, hunger is possible in the virtual world. As a matter of fact, most bodily functions operate in this world. She’s heard of players getting sick, starving, and even...loving too, although the latter is blocked by the system unless the player drops it. The urinary and latter half of the digestive system, however, don’t operate, as if that’s any consolation.
Bread tastes like crap too. If eating is a requirement of the game, can’t the food taste good? Asuna would do anything to eat the food of her household’s maid, Miss Sada.
“A hidden log-out spot? It’s just another false rumor, obviously.”
“But I hear it comes from the Rat herself.”
“Oh yeah? So...it’s supposed to be in the forest to the west?”
“Yeah. There’s a cave way in the back that looks like the right place. And no one who’s gone has come back, so what does that say?”
“Sounds like they got killed by monsters if you ask me…”
“Um, excuse me,” Asuna interrupts, interested in the discussion of the two men. “Where’s the forest to the west?”
“Huh? Um… Just where you’d think. Only takes about an hour down the path out of the west gate.”
With that information, Asuna turns away from the table. If such a place exists… Maybe she can make it back to the real world and the exam.“Thank you very much.”
“Um, you know you need to be about level three around there, right? You’re one of those folks waiting for help from the outside, right? Don’t get yourself hurt. No need to rush. In another few days, we’ll all be rescued…”
Asuna pauses. “That’s no good. It won’t be in time.”
“You got urgent business back in real life?”
“Yes. Today is the day of my high school mock exam.”
The two men look at Asuna’s hooded back, then to each other, then burst into laughter. “DAAH! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! A mock test? Not even a real one!”
“Yeah, sounds like a real problem to me! Aha ha ha! Take it from me. You don’t wanna do this. Stay here and have a drink with us.”
Asuna scoffs at the suggestion and turns on her heel. “Pardon me. Thanks for the warning.”
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“Here’s the spot.” An hour and travel west later, Asuna finds the mouth of the rumored cave in question, opening from the raised roots of a tree. The spookiness of the cave unsettles Asuna, but she grabs the hilt of her weapon to calm herself. “It’s just a game. I need to get out of here.” She makes her way into the cave, noting her first impression of the subterranean dungeon’s air as stinky, clammy, and utterly disgusting. She cringes with each step, her boots becoming soiled with wet mud. Thankfully the environment doesn’t linger on clothing (at least for now, not telling what happens later on in this game).
It’s quiet and monsterless for a moment as she takes more steps deeper into the cave, either by Asuna’s sheer luck or to her future fright. The latter is probably more aligned with SAO’s desire to kill its players, and by Asuna’s unfortunate fate, it is indeed just that. Asuna hears a low growl in the darkness in front of her, cautiously taking hold of her weapon again. What happens next is so fast she cannot fathom a reaction, but the next thing she knows is that her health is dangerously close to empty, she’s on the ground outside the cave, and she’s unable to move. She begins to ponder in fear if this is it, that she dies two weeks into the game because she believed a logically false rumor. It’s going to be that easy and she’s helpless to stop it.
“This sucks. For this horrible ending, I didn’t live through fifteen years of hard work… No way--” A shadow passes over her between the monster and Asuna, gaining its attention before Asuna hears the shadow call for another. A moment later, the monster, a Kobold by the looks of things, is nothing but brimming polygons. “Who…”
“Alright, you cheapskate, you can come out now.”
“Hey, nice work you two! Gotta say, I really don’t appreciate folks spreading false rumors using my name. It’s hard business being an informant.”
“Sure it is. Just send us two into danger while you relax in the safe zone.”
“And you are paid for that hard-earned, valuable information, aren’t you? Is our newbie here still alive?”
One of them kneels in front of Asuna, a girl by the sound of her voice. “Yes. Thank God we saved her. I don’t think I could handle another death so soon… Here you go.” A capsule enters Asuna’s hand and another hand gently grips hers. “Here, drink this healing potion.”
“So kind, milady. You should drizzle some of it on this big meanie here.”
“Whatever. We’re off. You can deal with your imposters on your own. I don’t wanna go orange nor put her in that situation either.”
“Yeah, I know. There’s your Col. We’ll talk again later.”
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“All calmed down?”
Asuna sees her health bar restored, which is the greatest relief one can have in this game. She still feels idiotic about believing such a false rumor, but she was desperate to return home, to take the exam she had extensively prepared for. “Yes… Thank you.” She turns to one of her saviors, a younger, blonde-haired girl of short stature. SAO’s system originally allowed custom avatars, but with Kayaba’s decree, all avatars reflect the original body in all physical means. Of course, one can add tattoos, change hair color, and other accessory modifications, but anything truly physical is unmodifiable. Short people are short, tall is tall, skinny is skinny, etc. The men she met earlier are not the oldest players she’s seen, and this girl is not the youngest. “Um… What do you mean, ‘informant?’”
The girl adjusts her hood. “Hmm. Just what it sounds like It’s a job buying and selling intelligence. I gather all kinds of info then provide it at a reasonable price. If it benefits the public, I spread it, or, if needed, bury it forever. B the way, what I just told you costs ten Col.”
Asuna sarcastically laughs. “That’s weird. This is a game, but it feels like reality.”
“Well, of course. This is our reality now.”
So it seems. Asuna faces the cave from her seated position, her mind on the information she gained earlier. “Miss Informant, is the ‘hidden log out’ just a false rumor?”
“Sorry. There’s no such thing.”
That limits Asuna’s means of escape from SAO down to two, and though it is obvious she doesn’t want to die, she isn’t ungrateful to the people who just saved her life to even consider it as a means. There’s only one option. “In that case, please sell me some info. I want to know how to be stronger.”
The girl drops her hood and plays with the strands of her hair. “Is that in order to survive longer?”
“No. So that I don’t ever regret anything again.”
“Hmm.” The girl opens her inventory and clicks on something. “Then you’ll want this. Here. Circle button.” Asuna accepts what’s being offered, and in her hand drops a book. ‘SAO Strategy Guide 1F Field Area’. Even comes complete with who’s the author. “It’s my strategy guide for the first floor of SAO. Think of it like a reference manual. I’ll make it free, just for you. That should be a big help to you--”
Asuna turns away to a passerby boar. Interesting, she flips the pages of her manual until she comes to its entry. “Umm… ‘Frenzied Boar’, aka ‘Blue Boar,’ is a non-active… Non-active means… I see. If I don’t attack the monster, it won’t be hostile to me. The source of data and prerequisites are somewhat vague. Did the author test this information to determine its accuracy? But it’s an excellent guide for a starting player. Well-indexed, plenty of notes, even a few images and diagrams.”
“Th-Thanks. And I’ll have you know, my information is always verified by trusted verifiers.”
“Methods of attack… This is a very thin sword, so I want this entry. It basically resembles regular fencing.” She draws her weapon, a rapier, and continues reading the guide. “Starter skill is ‘Linear’... Focus on the tip and twist.” Following the direction, Asuna targets the Frenzied Boar and activates Linear, defeating the beast in one hit. If she saw things from the informant’s perspective, she would have noticed her impeccable speed. “Oh, it worked. Well, I be. I can do it after all.”
“I take it back,” the informant says, greed written on her face. “No longer free. As my fee, I demand you tell me your name.”
“My name? It’s Asuna Yuuki.”
“W-Wait! Sorry, newbie, I meant your player name!”
Asuna sees another boar and targets it. “Oh, it’s Asuna.”
“I see, so Asuna is your player name too. When anyone mentions your name, it’s your player’s name. I’ll forget that piece of info. Just be careful from now on.” The informant sighs as her words of advice fall on possible deaf ears.
“Asuna the Fencer. She’ll go far. The day will come when she catches up to the top players in the game and gets herself a fantastic nickname. Then I can sell today’s events for a nice, hefty price to someone other than Kii-Boy and those two.”
“Hey, Miss Informant?”
“Hmm?”
Asuna turns around and holds the thin blade of her rapier. Her eyes no longer possess that of a scared girl willing to do anything to live, but a woman willing to not make any regrets to live. “Do you suppose I could defeat that monster from earlier?”