Another new day. Asuna woke up inside one of the houses in the Town of Beginnings.
The place she lived in was better than what over ninety-nine percent of players had.
The reason was simple. Every morning when she got up, she could enjoy a breakfast that had already been prepared for her. And most importantly, this place had a bathroom—an actual bathroom with a bathtub.
Even though this was a virtual world, it still had a "dust and grime" system. And she had no idea what kind of technology made it possible, but people could even smell the unpleasant stink of being filthy.
Especially if you went mining out in the field, or gathered plants and herbs—your body would end up like that.
It was all meant to make the world feel more real.
Back to the point: the place she stayed was actually the home of a female NPC.
Asuna had accepted a quest from her, and after completing it, she received this kind of "reward"—permission to live here.
She still had to pay rent, but it was cheaper than an inn, and the conditions were far better.
And right now, for most players, even staying in an inn was difficult. A lot of them were forced to crowd into a single room, or just sleep out on the streets.
"Has it already been a month…?"
Asuna opened the window and looked out at the scenery, murmuring to herself.
It had been that long since they were trapped. At this point, no one still believed the "officials" were joking.
And in this one month alone, the number of dead players—by the statistics—had already exceeded two thousand.
Out of ten thousand-plus players, that meant one-fifth were gone.
In the peaceful era she'd grown up in, it was an unthinkable horror.
And after so many deaths, as of now, this hundred-floor floating castle, Aincrad, still hadn't been cleared.
But in the last few days, people had finally begun organizing in earnest, preparing to challenge the First Floor Boss.
Should she join, too?
Join.
If she kept running, the moment she started running, fear would sink its teeth into her and eat her alive.
If she had to die, then fine—die fighting.
Tomorrow, there would be a strategy meeting. She'd heard that some strategy booklets would be released on-site, containing information about the Boss.
They were written by players from the closed beta.
But as for exactly which player had written them—those beta testers were hiding even deeper now.
Because if their identities got exposed, they'd become targets.
Some people believed the beta testers should be held responsible for the two thousand deaths. If they had stepped forward earlier and shared everything they knew, the sacrifices wouldn't have been this severe.
But in the end, hardly anyone did.
Everyone hid their identities out of selfishness.
Asuna could understand it, at least a little.
On one hand, beta testers had more information. That information could be used to survive in this deadly world. If they shared the secrets that kept them alive, resources would be split up—and that meant their own chances of living would drop.
Pure self-interest was definitely part of it.
And there was another issue: they feared their intel might be wrong. The closed beta and the official launch might not be identical.
For example, maybe a monster's strength, or attack pattern, had changed after launch.
If someone fought according to beta knowledge and died, then what?
Who would take responsibility?
In short, in this one month, a brutal gulf had formed between newbie players and beta testers.
As for the First Floor Boss data… Asuna already had it. Fallen Angel Kuroneko had given it to her.
According to Kuroneko, the First Floor Boss really was different from the beta. More dangerous. Its weapon was something that only an elite monster from around Floor Ten would use, and it had a special long-range slashing attack.
Meaning: even beta testers didn't know this.
If a raid went in blind, casualties were guaranteed.
That was why Asuna was so troubled—how was she supposed to share this information?
And because this was a virtual world, she couldn't just go to Kuroneko's livestream, download the files onto a computer, and store them.
So now she could only memorize everything by brute force.
Sure, you could find paper in the virtual world and write it down, but Asuna didn't dare do it.
Because once it was written on paper, it would be "recorded" by the system. And if Kayaba Akihiko—the GM—noticed, he might realize something was wrong with her.
Asuna logged into the Hyperdimension Channel to check the situation, and her expression sank with disappointment anyway.
How could she have been so stupid?
She wanted to go back to that day and slap herself across the face.
It was because of her own stupid curiosity that the Hyperdimension Channel had broken.
For instance, she opened Mr. Golden Toilet's livestream. It was live, but the screen looked almost frozen. If you stared long enough, you could tell it was still moving—just slowed down by an absurd factor.
And the cause was this:
After Kuroneko finished整理ing the intel and sent it to her, Asuna went to look at the Cross-World Invitation button again, and noticed a strange adjustment dial beside it, marked with a numbered scale.
She got curious and turned it to Scale 1.
And then everything became like this.
At first she thought the system had crashed. Later she realized it wasn't crashing at all—the Hyperdimension Channel's time had been slowed down.
In the end, she calculated a terrifying possibility:
At Scale 1, one day inside the Hyperdimension Channel might equal one year on her side.
Meaning, starting from the day she turned that dial…
…she wouldn't be able to "normally" watch and interact with everyone again until three years later.
Realizing how dangerous that dial was, Asuna immediately posted a warning in the channel: don't touch it.
"Okay… that should be about right."
Asuna adjusted Mr. Golden Toilet's stream playback speed, then started watching the story she'd effectively missed for about half a month.
After setting the speed properly, she continued from where she'd stopped and caught up to the newest part. For Mr. Golden Toilet's side, what had "passed" was about two hours.
One of those hours was content she'd already seen—so she ended up replaying it too.
The moment it started, the combat scenes made Asuna's heart surge violently along with them.
He was fighting this hard just to survive.
So she had to fight just as hard.
Asuna felt a kind of kinship with him—like they were both sick with the same disease. Watching him struggle so desperately infected her with the same stubborn will.
Every day, when she logged in, she checked that his livestream was still running.
If it was, that meant he was still alive.
Still struggling.
And that, in its own way, became encouragement—motivation—for her.
"Whew… that was close."
Another razor-thin moment nearly made her heart leap out of her chest.
And Asuna didn't even notice how much her concern had changed compared to two weeks ago.
At first, it was just basic kindness—worry for a stranger.
Then it became the concern you'd have for a friend.
And now… it had started to rot into something else.
She felt like if he got seriously hurt…
…she'd actually feel pain.
"Exterminatus?"
What was that?
She'd reached the end of what she could watch for now.
In the stream, those Astartes mentioned Exterminatus, and in that instant, each of them looked grim.
Mr. Golden Toilet's face turned heavy, too.
She'd heard them say the Imperium was going to abandon the planet, but it clearly wasn't as simple as "abandoning" it.
So if she waited for the stream to move forward by another day, she should be able to hear the follow-up—right?
It felt like watching a movie on a computer with a terrible internet connection. The loading was slow, the playback stuttered, and everything was slowed down by multiple factors. It was infuriating.
So she decided to let it buffer for a while, then come back.
By then, she'd know what Exterminatus really meant.
Asuna closed the stream.
She should get on with what she'd scheduled for herself today.
So, Mr. Golden Toilet…
Please, you have to live.
She would live, too.
Hang in there.
(End of Chapter)
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