Chapter 41

Author's Notes: First things first, thank you all for reading thus far, for those who continue to read, and those who are new. Thank you for your viewership. These notes will be fairly lengthy, and will, as previously done, answer some common questions. Furthermore, this is the only way to respond to anonymous reviews. Which, I will/have approved and had every review ever written for this story approved and visible publicly. The only way I'll block a review from appearing is when it's not topically relevant.

With that being said, I read and pay attention to every review, and try to figure out how I can improve the story based on the feedback received from the review. Additionally, if I get several reviews that ask relatively the same thing, or raise concerns about the same thing, then it becomes necessary (and I believe, a courtesy) to respond to the feedback. These notes are the best way to communicate enmasse, and the only way to respond to anonymous questions. If it seems like there's a delay in responding, it's because I haven't figured out an appropriate place to put these notes in yet.

I try to create a certain atmosphere about each chapter, and it begins even with the title of each chapter. It would kind of wreck the atmosphere of the upcoming chapters to put these at the beginning, so it's kind of now or never, for this specific timeframe. As a result, there will be no story content in this chapter. Sorry for the notification that there was a new chapter! The next part will come VERY soon.

Anyhow, getting started: The Sachi Relationship:

So yes, this is still a Kirito x Asuna story. To me, the…"enhanced" relationship with Sachi makes logical sense with the progression of Kirito's character. More on that later of course, and I want avoid explicitly spoiling what might exactly come next in the story. For lack of a better term, Sachi and Kirito's relationship was fairly glossed over in the anime adaptation. I'm not super up on the light novels, but I've been led to believe that their relationship in the light novels was non-romantic. I've also been led to believe that in the original web novel, there were romantic feelings expressed between Sachi and Kirito. I will also say that from what I've read into Progressive so far, the Asuna x Kirito relationship comes in a bit too strong a bit too early. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying Progressive, but that's just my opinion.

So, for my writing, I thought it would be best, almost from a pure literary mechanic perspective for what becomes apparent later, that Sachi and Kirito had romantic feelings. The poor girl deserves her time in the spotlight too! If it's any reconciliation, I would pay attention to the feelings of doubt Kirito often has when this sort of thing comes up between him and Sachi.

So yes, to reiterate, the story will be a Kirito x Asuna, as is normal. Quite simply, Kirito and Asuna aren't at those stages of their lives yet.

To further clarify the relationship statuses in relation to the tags of the story: FF only allows like 4 character tags (much to my knowledge) so I'm fairly limited. For a time I had Suguha instead of Klein, and also the Sachi tag which led people to believe this might have been a harem route (which again, it will be Kirito x Asuna). It was quite limiting, so I picked the tags that best fit where the story was at, at the time the characters were hyper-relevant. Suguha was in there because I was jumping back and forth between the real world and Aincrad for a bit there. That will still keep up, but I've been focussed on trying to get through the Sachi arc presently.

How long do you plan to keep this up?

The story has been going for almost 2.5(!) years now. I'm not nearly as far as I hope to be, and I'm hoping that will really change this year. My life has stabilized quite a bit, and especially now with the COVID pandemic I have a decent bit more free time on my hands.

So, I write for a gaming media outlet, and that comprises the bulk of my writing that I do. But, that's all non-fiction. I originally started this in order to practice writing fiction, and it has served its purpose quite well. I thoroughly enjoy writing my way through this, and getting audience feedback and thoughts. So I plan to keep this up as long as I can. If there ever reaches a point that it out paces the already written SAO stuff….well I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I do have my aspirations to maybe write my own novel one day, and so this is practice for that!

Why does Kirito have Elucidator now?

The scaling weapon thing adds a certain dynamic I'd like to play with in the future. And...I was too lazy to map out logical progressions for Kirito's weapons.

That's Pretty Much It

Not too many questions I suppose, but the first one had a fairly lengthy response and explanation. That's pretty much all I wanted to get out. If you would like extended insight on anything else from the story, feel free to DM or leave a review, Ideally, with a FF account so I can directly respond to you without having to do author's notes like this.

Anyway, please continue enjoying the story. Feedback and comments are always welcome. Finally, I hope everyone stays healthy. I'm currently writing this on April 11th, 2020 where roughly 75% of the world is on some sort of lockdown due to the Corona Virus Pandemic.

I love you all 3

-Inferius