AN.: Thank you very much for reading my story.

To the Guest reviewer: Thank you for liking my story. Why did you think that I wouldn't update anymore? I clearly stated that updates would be published at least once every two month.

Disclaimer: I own neither Sword Art Online nor the original book Erebos. They both belong to their respective copyright holders. I just borrowed their characters and parts of the storyline.

Kirito tried to log into Erebos, but instead of letting him play, the game wouldn't even start. So he had no other choice but try to accomplish this ridiculous mission if he wanted to continue playing - and he had to continue if he ever wanted to find out the mysteries behind the game.

Would he really find a box near the CeruanTower? Did the game give him a mission in Tokyo because it knew he was living there or was it just pure luck that he didn't have to travel all over Japan to accomplish the mission of researching the game? He sighed. At the moment he had no means to answer the questions. Hopefully going further into the game would answer them. Since it was already late, he decided to do the mission on the next morning. After all he had no school on Saturdays, so he would have enough time till one pm to finish the mission.

When he finished breakfast he took his backpack to carry the box unnoticed and told his sister that he wanted to look for some hardware, knowing that she would have wanted to accompany him if he had just said he was going to the nearest underground station he took the Shibuya line to the Shibuya station. From then on he continued walking until he reached the CeruanTower. You could hardly miss it. After all it was one of the largest monuments in Tokyo. He paused thinking whether to buy some hardware as an alibi, but decided against it since it was highly expensive and his wallet almost empty thanks to Suguha.

Reaching the tower, he looked around, trying to be not too suspicious. As there were not many people around sightseeing at this ungodly hour, he didn't have to be worried to be reported for suspicious behaviour. To his surprise he really found a box near the entrance, but it was hidden well, so that a normal passerby wouldn't notice it. He was glad that he had decided to bring his backpack, since the box was not only rather large but also heavy, so that transporting it would raise unwanted questions and would certainly result in aching muscles.

'What could be hidden in the box that was this heavy' he wondered. He was more than curious to know, but the box was sealed with strong duct tape which made opening it without leaving traces impossible. And leaving traces wouldn't end well. After all the messenger had warned him that he would be thrown out of the game if he didn't abide the rules.

Inspecting the box in detail, he noticed that something was carved in the wood it was made of.

'Sarius 09182008'

Saruis sounded Latin, but it could also be a name of someone of the players of Erebos. And the numbers were his birth date. A coincidence? Deciding not to rack his brain any further with this stupid mission he put he box in his backpack and headed towards Yoyogi Park, the place he was told to hide the box in. On his way he crossed the famous Hachiko statue.

Reaching the park, he admired the beautiful landscape full of trees and watched the sportsmen training for the next competition. The park had a calm atmosphere. Even though the park wasn't too far from his house, Kirito hadn't been there before. When he was younger he had spent a lot of time with kendo, and after that he was using all his time on computers, not going out of his room besides for school and visiting friends. So he didn't knew the outlines of the rather big park which resulted in a long search for the appointed bridge.

When he finally found the bridge, he made sure that nobody was watching him and hid the box in a place that wasn't easy to see from the path. He had accomplished the mission in time. When he arrived home, the urge to play Erebos was big, but he decided to watch the result of the auction first. According to the official ALO website, Balmung had been sold for over a million dollars. Seeing the ridiculous amount of zeros lined up in a row made his head swirl.

Logging into Erebos he found himself in the same place he had been thrown out of the day before. Standing in front of him was the messenger.

"I see that you have fulfilled your mission, so I keep my promise, too. You are fully healed and are now on level two. Furthermore I will give you a better armour with +20 defence and +5 agility." The armour was out of black leather that looked fragil, but was as hard and light as mythril. Kirito thanked the messenger for the equipment.

"Erebos likes trustworthy players, so he has a present for you. Log into ALO and you will find it there."

How did the game knew that he was playing ALO? Since he was used to have unanswered questions about the game, he logged out of Erebos and into ALO, curious what he would get.

Opening his equipment, he found an item in it that hadn't been in there before - the legendary sword Balmung. How did the sword get there? Was it a bug? Hopefully the one responsible for putting it in there didn't steal it from the previous owner after all the sword was worth a fortune. If doing such a small mission would grant him such a valuable present, what even greater things would be possible with Wish Crystals?

Euphoric about his new weapon, he decided to test it out on the highest floor. It cut through monsters like a knife through butter. With this sword he would be almost invincible. But his killing spree was interrupted soon, when Asuna logged in and noticed his new equipment.

"Isn't that the legendary sword Balmung? How did you get it? You couldn't possibly afford such an expensive item, I've followed the auction"

Kirito pondered on what to say. He wasn't allowed to disclose anything about Erebos. And even if he wouldn't be thrown out of the game for telling an 'outsider', Asuna would surely try to keep him from playing it. That was something he couldn't allow to happen.

So he just answered "A friend, who is a rich heir, knew how much I wanted the sword and gave it to me in exchange for helping him with a bad computer virus"

Asuna wasn't convinced at all, she never heard about any other friends, especially not rich ones. But she didn't want to insist on an answer, knowing that Kirito had his reasons for not telling. She knew him well enough to be sure that he didn't use illegal means to get a hold of it, which was enough for her, at the moment at least.

To avoid further questioning, Kirito decided to log out and continue playing Erebos. Also there was always the possibility of finding a wish crystal which could grand him even greater wishes. Wasn't it also his responsibility to continue playing? After all he had accepted the job from Kikuoka and would receive money for it. He shouldn't waste too much time with unnecessary conflicts that weren't avoidable if he continued playing ALO.

Logging into Erebos, he found himself once again opposite the messenger inside the old cave.

"Did you like the present?" the messenger asked with a hidden smile.

"Yeah. Thank you very much."

"You have the choice to continue with one of two quests. Either you accompany a troll raid or you will go on a search for GingkoVillage, the village behind the leaves. On the raid you will probably gain a lot of money and equipment, while in the village there will be an arena fight tomorrow in which you can fight for money, levels and even wish crystals."

Fighting was more his cup of tea than searching for something hidden, but the temptation to receive a wish crystal was too big to let this chance go.

So he answered "I'll search for the hidden village."

"I knew that you would say that. Don't take too much time. You can only enlist for the tournament till 12pm tonight. Farewell." With that the messenger disappeared in the darkness.

Leaving the cave, Kirito was at a loss where to start his search. The village could be located anywhere. Wait, what he had learned in geography? In the old times, most cities were located near water sources or mountains that would protect them from attackers ... and the water ghosts had lived in a strange, orange river. So most logical approach would be to go back to the river and follow its path. But where was the river again? Sigh, he had relied too much on Yui for directions. He was so used to her guidance that he didn't look at his surroundings as much as he had done in SAO. To make things even worse, it had already been dark when they had finished the fight, so hadn't been able to see any far marks he could have used as a guide.

Since running around wildly would only reduce his stamina bar and waste time, he calmed himself and listened to his surroundings. There it was! To his south-west he could hear the sound of running water. Completely relying on his ears, he followed the sound, until he had reached the orange river. But where to continue from here?

The village was called Village behind the leaves, so it would be probably located near a forest and not inside of it, after all it wasn't called village hidden IN the leaves. Since the forest grew bigger stream upwards, he decided to follow the stream downward until he was out of the forest and hoped that he would find the village somewhere near.

After walking for a while and enjoying his peaceful surroundings, Kirito took in the faint smell of blood. Alarmed he looked around him, to see where it came from. Soon he found the source of the bad smell: a torn piece of armour, torn and soaked with the blood of its owner. But where was the owner? Kirito shuddered at the thought of what could have happened to him. As if to agree to his bad foreboding, the reason for the lone piece of cloth appeared: a giant dog, looking bored, waiting for a new toy to play with and kind of ... hungry. Kirito gulped. This dog reminded him more of a rabid Cerberus that a cute pet dog. His teeth could shatter bones and his paws could knock of his head. And it was fast. Incredibly fast. It came running at him with great speed, happy to have found some new food to toy with.

But high speed also meant that he couldn't easily change directions. Kirito used this to his advantage. Thanks to his level up, he could move not only faster, but also had more stamina, making him able to endure a long fight. When the dog charged at him, he swiftly moved to the side, attacking it from behind while it attacked the thin air. Luckily the dog was not Cerberus, so could attack from the blind points, without being noticed. As the dog turned around, Kirito ran through his legs to the other side, thus able to attack from behind again. Like that he evaded the deathly teeth and only had to pay attention not to be stomped on or be hit by the tail the dog was whipping angrily. After a long time, since he could not attack its weak points as it was to dangerous alone, he finally defeated the monster of a dog. As a reward, he got 40 gold coins and some meat to replenish his HP.

Taking in his surroundings, he noticed a large row of ginkgo trees that looked a bit strange. They were all on the same height, and you couldn't walk between their trunks. Having a strange feeling about their arrangement, Kirito walked nearer to inspect them more detailed. Now he realized why they had seemed strange. They were planted so close, because they made a giant maze. The dog must have guarded its entrance. The village behind the leaves ... could the ginko leaves be meant? What would be a better way to hide and guard the city from intruders than a maze?

Happy to have finally found the right path, he marched right into the it. At first he continued following the river, but when the first crossroad came, he was forced to change his direction. Now he had no point of orientation anymore and unfortunately he didn't have anything to mark the road either. The path was too hard to carve something in and the tree trunks were protected by the system. So he had no choice but to rely on his sense of orientation. Walking deeper and deeper into the forest, he had the feeling of being followed, but when he looked around, no one was there. He kept being cautious, and after a while, he heard some faint noise from above, getting louder with time.

He looked up not a minute too late, over the tree branches which kept out most of the sun, two giant spiders had silently surrounded him. The only thing which saved him was the background noise, warning him of an enemy. The scenario reminded him of an old movie he had seen, where two boys had run away from giant spiders in a forest ... what was its name again? Anyway, the spiders would not have been too hard to fight normally, he was strong enough to keep them on distance, but they were hard to see in the dark, which made fighting them harder. Parrying their legs and teeth with one sword, and targeting their legs and eyes with the other, it didn't take long to defeat them. His victory had cost him about a seventh of his health, but there was nothing in the rewards to replenish it with, so he had no choice but to continue with a shortened health bar.

A few crossings later, he realised he was lucky to have acted on his hearing. A cat women was lying on the ground with almost no health remaining. She must have been caught absentmindly since she seemed to have been attacked from behind. Probably she had been wounded beforehand at the entrance and than decided to shut off the background music which gets pretty loud and disrupting as the health bar declines.

She asked Kirito for help, but he couldn't offer any. He had no items to heal her with and wasn't able to cast healing spells. He hadn't wanted them, since they could only be used on other players. Since he preferred to work alone, they were useless to him.

He left her, despite his nagging conscience telling him to take her with him. She wouldn't be able to walk, and he couldn't protect them both if attacked. So he just continued walking and defeated the spiders in his way, taking useful parts of them he could sell later. After a short while he came into a larger clearing with three paths going from it. In the middle of the clearing some people were sitting around a camp fire talking. Going nearer, he recognized Black Rose and Imgrimsch, sitting together with an unknown dark elf. The elf seemed to be really strong and had good equipment.

"Konbanwa Black Rose-san, Imgrimsch-san,"Kirito greeted them.

"Konbanwa, Kirito-san. So you are finally a two, congratulations."

"Thank you."

Then Black Rose introduced him to the stranger,

"Kirito-san, this is Sinthoras, he is one of the strongest players around here."

"Hajimemashite. I'm Kirito. It's nice to meet you,"Kirito sayed politely, but Sinthoras ignored him, giving him a ridiculing look.

Just when he was about to start an argument, Siberias entered with a big grin on his face

"What do you think I just found?", he grinned at Kirito evilly.

"You found a Wish Crystal!" Imgrimsch stated disbelievingly.

"I found it in one of the spiders protecting this maze", he added, still grinning at Kirito.

Why is he looking at me like that, Kirito asked himself. Then he caught on. Siberias had found the Wish Crystal in one of the spiders he had killed. It should rightfully belong to him!

"That is my Wish Crystal! You stole him from me!" Kirito shouted angrily. Who knows what he would have got with the Wish Crystal, if a simple mission awarded him with the most expensive weapon of ALO.

Siberias just snorted "Finders, keepers. It's not my fault that you have been too stupid to find it."

That angered Kirito all the more, he knew, that logically Siberias was right, but did he have to boast like that? He couldn't stand guys like that. Overwhelmed by anger, he stormed at Siberias, who was probably at least one level higher if not even more.

Furious about Siberias' audacity to keep HIS Wish Crystal, Kirito stormed at him, swinging his sword wildly. The other players were shocked. Attacking players outside of duels was unheard of since there was a high chance to die if you didn't knew your opponents level, and attacking someone of a lower level was cowardly and most of the time useless.

After the shock of the surprise attack had subsided Siberias caught himself and started his counterattack. Kirito had only stolen a few lp from him, so he was far from defeated and was two level stronger than his opponent, not that Kirito would be able to know that fact.

Since Kirito was weaker in stats, he tried to win the fight through experience and tactic. He saw through the faints of Siberias without even having to think. While most people had no combat experience out side of some casual gaming, Kirito had not only practiced Kendo for years, but also was locked inside of SAO, which trained his swordsmanship to the point of acting out of pure reflex without even having to think about how he should parry or attack.

This threw Siberias out of balance. He had expected Kirito to be a total newbie and wasn't prepared for such a strong enemy. He may had no problems reflecting Kirito's attack, but he couldn't see through his faints, resulting into his LP sinking slowly, but steadily. His only chance to win this fight was to continuously attack, hoping to overthrow Kirito through force alone.

Kirito had no chance to defend himself against this onslaught. He tried to dodge the hits, but neither his stamina nor his speed could keep up with what his brain told his body to do. So he retreated to catch his breath … and to take out his second sword which he had kept hidden until know to give him the advantage of surprise. And it worked Kirito went into the offensive again, attacking Siberias with both of his swords simultaneously.

Siberias couldn't escape now anymore. He may have been able to dodge one sword, but two? Impossible. Every time he evaded one hit, another hit him with full force until his hp almost reached zero.

"Give me back my Wish Crystal and I won't kill your character," Kirito offered him, but Siberias was reluctant. He wouldn't get the chance to find a Wish Crystal this easily anytime soon.

"The Crystal will be of no use for you if your character is dead. You know the rules, if you die in game, you will no longer be able to play," Kirito continued. He really didn't want to kill Siberias, even if it was just a game, he wasn't use to killing PCs, he preferred hunting mobs and his anger had dissolved during the battle.

His opponent still hesitated for a short while, but then gave him the Crystal. A sword at your neck was persuasive after all.

The reactions of the other players present were mixed. Black Rose seemed angry at him for just attacking Siberias without a warning and Sinthoras ridiculed Siberias for losing against a mere two.

As always after a fight, the messenger appeared.

"You have fought very well Kirito. Still attacking your comrades without a warning is not something I like to see. Next time ask the player for a duel. Siberias' Wish Crystal is enough of a reward for your win.

Siberias, not only did you take the reward of another player's hunt, but you also lost against someone two level below your rank. For your failures I will take back one of your levels"

Siberias didn't want his hard earned level to be taken away, but also didn't want to risk an even greater punishment for arguing with the messenger and compiled.

As no arguments came, the messenger vanished once again into thin air.

Since Kirito didn't want to lose any more time, he said good-bye to the others and continued his way through the maze, taking the second of the three paths. After a few turns he could see the orange river again and followed it to the exit of the maze. As he went trough the exit a fanfare in his BGM activated and a voice said

'Welcome in GinkgoVillage, Kirito.'

Please review to let me know wether you liked the chapter, have ideas how I should continue or want me to change something. All opinions are highly welcome!