I slept. Days passed, sun warming me before falling to the chill of night. I was only dimly aware that I was still alive, and not yet ready to confront the responsibilities that came with not being dead.

I didn't open my eyes, but gradually I began to sense more of the world around me. I could feel the touch of a woman's hand as she brushed my hair with her hand, the soft chatter of children, the warmth of a blanket wrapped around my small, huddled form. There was a crushing sense of pressure from the world, a bottomless pit where my determined energy used to be, but gradually I could feel my inner wounds healing. I was at last catching up on the sleep and peace I'd been lacking for so long, and bit by bit my soul was piecing itself back together.

It was a washcloth that finally prompted me to move. The chill wetness against my face had me scrunching back, opening heavy eyelids just far enough to see what had offended me. The washcloth was far from clean, covered in dust and grime that I knew had come from my face. I resented being awoken but it was still nice to be a little cleaner. I'd been like a statue, gradually collecting dust. And unlike a statue, I could also sweat.

"You're aw…"

I blurrily saw a woman's face beyond the washcloth but my eyes shut before I could get a better look. As nice as it might be to be cleaner, sleep came first.

I was left alone for a while after that, for hours or even days, but eventually she came again. She washed my face again, my arms, even rinsed my hair. I went along with it, not fighting, but not participating either. She wanted something from me, but I didn't have anything left to give. The only thing I had the energy for was sleeping, and even my dreams were exhausting.

It was a warm bread roll waved under my nose that finally got me moving. Just far enough to take a nibble, and then to swallow the bite-sized pieces she fed to me one by one, but I moved. It was a torturous sort of pleasure to eat the hot bread though. I'd been ignoring my hunger for so long that I'd largely forgotten what it felt like, but the partial meal brought it all to the forefront. I felt well and truly starved. I nearly bit her fingers after the final piece of bread disappeared, but instead I softly said, "More."

"I'm sorry, that's all I have for now. Do you think you can get up for me?"

I was disappointed, but I shoved the ache of my hunger into the background as well as I could and went back to sleep.

It was several days and six bread rolls later that I realized I'd spoken. Not growled or barked, but actual intelligible human speech. I'd accomplished one of my goals, but it didn't make me feel any less empty. I didn't have anyone left I wanted to talk to.

I was wrong. It wasn't a heartfelt conversation or anything but I did have something to say to the woman who was for some reason caring for me. I wanted more food. Maybe some meat like I'd grown so accustomed to eating, or the nice berry pie treats like Sachi had fed me rather than another piece of unsalted and unbuttered bread, but mostly I just wanted more. Her answer confused me.

The orphanage couldn't afford it? This was still the world of SAO, I knew that much from the continued squishiness of my chest against my knees when I curled up, so something like a famine wasn't possible. This sort of bread was just about as cheap as food got in Aincrad, at a mere two coppers each. I was the highest leveled player, but even a mid-rank player should gain enough gold from a single kill to buy several thousand rolls of cheap bread. Were the donations to this place so small?

Perhaps. I hadn't even known an orphanage existed, so donating to it was impossible. Though it made sense in hindsight. Despite the age recommendations for the game, plenty of kids had eagerly hopped in for the launch of the greatest VR game ever made. I doubted they were handling the death game very well at all.

An irritating spark of pity for the children I heard around me nearly had me stirring, but I went back to sleep instead.

One of my periods of awareness happened to coincide with story time. A tale of a princess trapped in a tower; long golden hair and a knight that climbed up to rescue her. It was an oddly poignant tale, something about it speaking to my own situation in the death game. It bugged me though that I felt myself identifying with the princess as much as the knight.

I opened my eyes, curious to see the tale-teller, the woman that had cared for me, led me back from the abyss. I didn't move, just watched like a blue-eyed doll, taking in my surroundings for the first time since I'd felt myself die.

The storyteller was an auburn-haired woman. Older than myself, but younger than my mother. Not the typical image of someone running an orphanage, though her nun-like clothes fit well enough. A small pack of children sat or fidgetted around her, from as young as six to as old as sixteen. The building itself was a church, which almost explained her outfit.

I suspected it explained more than that. Ever so slowly, my mind clicked towards a conclusion. The archangel, the crystal of rebirth… being reborn in a church made a certain amount of sense given that sort of mythos. It was just my luck that it housed an orphanage or I might have just rotted away.

My willpower and determination were still utterly spent, but curiosity was slowly starting to trickle back into my soul. I was able to speak again, but what else had changed with my rebirth? I hadn't been able to direct the process like I'd imagined would be the case, but since I hadn't been tossed out of town or killed like a common mob, at least some of my desires must have been answered.

Mysteries abounded but I let my eyes closed. I was so tired, but unlike before it was a satisfied sort of exhaustion. It was like I'd worn out a muscle, but it was just resting in order to grow stronger. It was time for me to sleep, but for the first time I was confident that I would open my eyes again.

Sometimes I missed it, but more often than not I managed to stay awake for story time. It wasn't anything amazing and it made me feel childish, but it helped heal one of the aching wounds in my consciousness that I'd been stubbornly ignoring. The move to SAO had been entirely too abrupt. I'd gone from a culture where I could watch all sorts of videos on my phone whenever I had a moment's downtime to a world that was positively medieval. It had gotten even worse when my UI broke so badly that I couldn't play any of the songs loaded into SAO.

Without even another human being to interact with for most of my time, I'd gone through a sanity-pressuring withdrawal that only constant fighting had distracted me from. I'd been missing something integral to human beings, and it was incredibly warming to have it back in some small measure.

I was awake more often at other times as well. Sometimes just listening but increasingly with my eyes open, occasionally even tilting my head to take in another view.

The kids really were a mixed lot. Some seemed almost too cheerful, playing with a ball as if trying to forget the world they were in. Others stared at nothing with empty eyes, nearly as disconnected as I was. Kayaba truly had no mercy at all to keep them here. Even if they escaped some day, what would their lives be like afterwards?

I wasn't the only one to think of that. Our caretaker, Sasha, didn't only tell stories. Each day she tried to fit in a couple hours of learning. Mostly just simple math, history, and for the littlest ones some reading practice. It wasn't much, but it was a sign of hope and optimism for a future outside the game. I didn't much listen to it. I needed to focus on beating the game. It was still up to me to save everyone. Wasn't it?

Sasha noticed my slowly rising energy and took it as a sign to push me a step further. With some effort she carried me to a back room. Begrudgingly I accepted her comments that I stank and needed to change out of my clothes, and granted her system permission to take them off me. Unfortunately rather than put me into new ones she drew a cloth from a bucket I'd failed to notice and started washing.

I squawked at the treatment and wished I could still pull off an intimidating growl. I was at least ten years too old or three years too young for this sort of thing. Seeing me in this form was already bad enough but being washed like a child by a pretty young woman was really just too much. "I can wash myself!"

"Alright then." She drew back but didn't leave, apparently intent on seeing whether or not I'd carry through. As someone who'd defeated fifty powerful bosses, she was really taking me too lightly.

I grabbed the washcloth, a trembling in my arm nearly but not quite knocking over the bucket of warm water. I drew it up to my opposite shoulder and then didn't so much rub it down my arm as let it fall down it. Going back the other way was simply impossible. There was a delay between my body and mind, as well as a stiff resistance that was exhausting to contend against. With that simple movement I was already spent, barely enough energy remaining to keep myself sitting upright.

I breathed heavily from the exertion of moving my arm. My chest heaved, and worse was that I lacked the strength to lift my head to look away. I was defeated. Weak, helpless, worthless. Everything felt wrong. I'd been stuck in a body not my own from the beginning, but even as it grew even more alien I always had my strength and speed. Without that, what was I anymore? What was my purpose?

"It's okay," said Sasha. "Don't cry. We can try again later. Let's get you dressed."

I faded into myself as she guided my arms into a sundress. Was this all the fault of the crystal of rebirth, my mind adjusting to the inputs of a different virtual body? Or had I damaged myself from staying awake for so long, pushing myself beyond what any human could bear. Would I get better?

After another three days, a small burning coal of determination to grow stronger lit inside me. I did what I could each day. I adjusted my own blanket when my feet peeked out the bottom, and during story time I did my best to sit up on my own. It wasn't much compared to the superhuman feats I'd grown used to performing, but I really did improve each day. The sense of growth was inspiring, forming a foundation for my sense of self to build. The peace had been nice and just what I needed, but my improving ability to move was what made me finally start to feel a little like myself again.

A week of gingerly testing my legs let me walk again, albeit with Sasha's support. But I wanted to do more than that. I'd regained some of my curiosity from the ocean of apathetic despair I'd been submerged in, but hand in hand with it had come boredom from my inability to satisfy it. One question in particular weighed on my mind, and now I finally might have the means to answer it.

"Do you have a mirror?"

"There's one in the back. Do you think you can walk that far yet?"

"I can make it," I replied confidently. I was less sure about making it back.

It was a long haul, the effort enough to give me the beginnings of a headache. I took a few deep breaths before looking.

I wasn't sure what I expected to see, but it was still shocking to see the girl staring back at me from the mirror. 'I'm meherhuman again.' I had my sister's face and body again, only the desolate look in my eyes showing who was hiding inside her. A faint sharpness to my canines was the only remnant of the inhuman transformation I'd suffered.

It wasn't a perfect reset. Unless I was very much mistaken, I looked older than I had at the start. My own age of fourteen rather than Suguha's thirteen. Or was I fifteen now? Either way, I wasn't happy with it. Not being treated like a kid by other players would be nice, but female puberty came with perks I would have sooner done without. Bad enough that I looked like my sister without being curvier than the average Japanese girl on top of that.

"You're very pretty," said Sasha. "If we do something about this ragged hair of yours I bet you'll be turning heads with all the boys."

I blanched at that, a reaction she noticed with alarm.

Her voice was delicate, without any of its normal chiding. "When I found you unconscious in the church you were naked. Did something happen to you? It's alright, you can talk to me."

I wasn't naive enough to be ignorant of what she was suggesting. "No! It was nothing like that." But now that she'd brought it up I couldn't help but think about it. That sort of thing — with me. God, I felt sick. I wasn't sure if it was possible to throw up in this virtual world but I was already pressing my luck.

"Let's go," I said firmly, staggering as I turned until she moved to support me. It was time to go back to my blanket.

"How are you feeling today Leafa?"

"Leafa?" It was an odd sort of nickname to give me. It wasn't like my hair was green.

"Oh, I just assumed," said Sasha. "Do you prefer your real-life name? Some of the other kids do as well."

Wait, was she saying that… there it was. Above my head, a gray lettering saying Leafa. How did that happen?

A quick reflection revealed a likely answer. One of the Kanji in my sister's name could be read as Leaf. It gave more credit to the idea that she must have tried out my headset at some point before the launch. I'd already assumed as much given what happened to me, but this was a strong confirmation. I missed her too much to be irritated about her hand in what had happened to me, but it made my skin itch to lose another piece of who I was and who I was supposed to be. But it was useful too. Between the name change and the slight maturation of my character I could pass myself off as merely a close lookalike of the infamous "cheating" frontliner. For now Kirito would have to die for Leafa to live.

"Leafa is fine, I guess. I just haven't heard it that often. I wasn't around people much." I spoke a little more than I had to. Apparently lying was something I was also out of practice with, but at least she didn't seem to suspect my real identity. I wouldn't be able to defend myself from even the least of the people who hated me.

"Leafa it is then. Feel like coming outside today? Some of the other kids are playing football, I thought you might like to watch."

"I guess." I wasn't too enthused about watching the guys and a few girls kick around a ball, but it might be nice to feel the sun again. Artificial sun, but still.

As she carefully watched me to make sure I didn't fall, a question burned on my tongue. It was one that had buzzed inside me for some time now but I hadn't dared ask.

Finally I pushed it out. "Do you know how the front line is doing? Did they make it past the fiftieth floor?" My arms crossed over my chest, nerves nearly overwhelming. I hadn't had the chance to activate the portal. Had they made it through before Michael respawned? And for that matter, were they capable of beating the next boss without me?

"Sorry," said Sasha. "I really don't know. I didn't follow the news in the real world either. It was always just too depressing. Besides, I can't afford the paper they put out with the orphanage's expenses."

It wasn't the worst news I could have heard, but it wasn't good news either. I wouldn't be able to relax until I heard one way or another. Unfortunately it looked like I wouldn't be getting the answers I needed at the orphanage, and it would be a while before I had the strength to safely venture outside. Maybe watching football would take my mind off the matter. No, probably not.

I was far from ready to face monsters, but I refused to stay stewing in ignorance in the orphanage any longer. I didn't need to fight to get information, I just had to get to the market. With the entire town a safe zone I could do that much.

While safe from monsters, I was still a little nervous about other players. Shoving, at least in the beta, wasn't very regulated. Enough shoves could push a player right out of the safe zone to be slaughtered. But my disguise was good. In addition to the subtle aging transformation I'd undergone, I tied my hair into a ponytail that hung nearly to the bottom of my shoulder blades. Throw in the unassuming sundress and the lack of daggers and I truly doubted that anyone would recognize me, or believe it was me if they did. Besides, most of those who had seen me personally were front liners and there was little reason for them to be on the first floor.

"Are you sure about going alone?" asked Sasha, watching me from the top of the church's steps.

"Don't worry, I'll be back in an hour. I just want to see the market."

And with that I was off. Not in a cheetah-like sprint or even a jog, but a slow and shaky plod that was still surer-footed than what I'd managed even days ago. It didn't feel good, and already I missed my sleeping spot, but I knew I had to keep pushing myself. If I stopped, I'd never grow. It was a betrayal of all the other players and everything I stood for to continue lying around like a cripple when I was sure I still had what it took to succeed. Or mostly sure, at least.

The disguise was a blessing for more than the obvious reasons. Even in the Town of Beginnings where the strongest inhabitant was level ten, I was clearly regarded as the weakest sort of person. I wasn't sure I could have withstood it if it was my own face being shown in association with my present weakness. Unfortunately that defense of it not being my face rang a little hollower than it should have thanks to more than a year spent in a girl's body, particularly when it came to looks that sized me up for more than fighting strength. The dress Sasha had given me was high-cut enough that it didn't show off much of my newly enlarged cleavage, but any at all felt like too much. The fact that SAO had a playerbase that was over eighty percent male wasn't helping.

The attention continued once I reached the marketplace. Though equally annoying were all those players that bumped me without noticing or didn't realize I couldn't move fast enough to get out of the way as the barrelled through. Even the npcs seemed to be bullying me. I was sticking out a lot more than I wanted. Maybe a monk's habit and an intimidating crow mask would have been a better disguise than the innocent young girl look.

Matters reached a head as a hand grabbed my bottom in the middle of the crowd. A system warning bumped his hand away but not before he got a good handful. I felt shocked and humiliated, as well as more than a small bit helpless since I was so slow to react that the perpetrator was already lost in the crowd by the time I turned around.

No matter what I looked like, I wasn't an innocent young girl with no knowledge of the world. Before SAO I was a fourteen year old boy with all the blossoming perversion and fragile pride that implied. I roughly knew what the man must have been thinking when he did it, his confidence that he would get away with it. Gradually I felt my humiliation morphing itself into anger, growing towards a rage that was stronger by far than any emotion I'd had since my rebirth.

'They really aren't giving me any face at all.' Regardless of how I looked now, I was still the hero that had defeated fifty bosses by myself, bosses capable of killing dozens of normal players with ease. My daggers had carved through tens of thousands of mobs. Even human bandit npcs had fallen to my blades in the higher floors until killing them felt almost natural. And then there were all the monsters I'd eaten, with some bites taken before they'd even died. And yet these useless men on the first floor thought it was safe to leer at me, to grope me? I still knew the difference between right and wrong so I wouldn't kill them outright, but beating them black and blue and repeatedly cutting their arms off for a few days sounded like a fair punishment.

In normal times I might have said that the intense rage I felt coursing through my veins wasn't healthy, but the opposite appeared to be true in this case. I felt more closely connected to my body than I'd been since my rebirth. The delay between thought and action felt as if it had been cut by half, my steps surer and more forceful. For the first time in what felt like ages I sensed a latent energy in my limbs, just enough to throw a single punch or kick if a proper target presented itself.

For better or worse, no other gropers came forward for a kick to the groin. I moved out of the main flow of the marketplace crowd, spotting my original target.

The newspapers at the player's side were something of an anachronism, but hardly the only one. Even before the introduction of players the floors had a wide mishmash of technology and culture. Devices ranged from stone age tech to some sort of alternate universe steampunk genre, and that was without mentioning the magic tech offerings that at times could pass as futuristic sci-fi devices. It was better not to think too deeply into it.

His eyes went to my chest first which had me bristling from my recent encounter but remembering how often I'd done that myself with girls before SAO kept me from immediately snapping. Luckily for his health his eyes moved upwards before too long as he got to business. "Fifty coppers for a paper."

For information, it was an absurdly low price. One that had to have been adapted to meet the market of starting players since I'd overheard the Black Cats saying they paid twenty pieces of silver for a copy.

I reached diagonally into unreality, a gesture that should have brought out whatever amount of coins I desired. Instead all that came was a ping indicating I was out of money.

The result wasn't entirely unexpected. The metaphysical weight I'd grown used to of my unsold inventory had disappeared, a vague emptiness left behind. Even my equipped items had burned away during my rebirth. To have the coins disappear as well wasn't all that surprising. Disappointing, but not surprising.

Due to most npcs refusing to associate with my animalistic form, I'd gathered a considerable fortune. Unable to sell items or spend my gold in most instances, it had just kept piling up. Even one percent of my fortune would have been enough to buy food for the orphanage for year, or cause this newspaper salesman to start spontaneously backflipping like he'd won the lottery. Instead I lacked even enough money to buy a simple apple. The price to become human again was far higher than I'd imagined.

"Can you just tell me what happened on fiftieth floor? Did they make it past the boss?"

"Twenty coppers."

If I wasn't trying so hard to distance myself from who I'd become, I might have growled at that.

"I'll be back," I said in a low and gravelly but still depressingly feminine and unthreatening voice. 'Whether I'll be back to pay you or beat you up remains to be seen.'

I took a side route out of the marketplace, loathe to venture back into the overly touchy and masculine crowd. After a short distance I sat on the stoop of some villager's house. Anger had fueled me for a while but now I dearly needed a rest. This was the farthest I'd pushed myself yet, and perhaps more than I should have. I'd been desperate to learn the outcome of my selfish sacrifice only to be told to wait further still. Somehow I needed to earn coins, not an easy thing to do with no strength and no resources to outfit myself with gear. As I felt right now, even a level one boar might kill me.

I'd been putting it off for a long time, worrying about what I might find, but I couldn't wait any longer. I needed to know what that crystal had done to me.

With a shaking hand I opened up my profile. A cheerfully smiling copy of myself shined in the window like an eery doll version of myself. The rest of the window looked equally shiny and new. Gone were the question marks and broken graphics that had plagued me as errors grew like a virus. That much was refreshing, but seeing the very clear Lvl 1 beneath my name felt like an axe to the gut.

It was a total rejection of everything I'd been through. A complete erasure of months of bone-breaking work. It was enough to make collapse on my back, energy seeping out of me like water through a sieve. I wanted to give up, to just lie still until death took me or some more fitting hero saved us from this twisted world. But reading the next few lines did bring back a seed of hope.

Fifteen agility, twelve strength, eleven constitution and over two hundred health. These were the stats of a player in the low teens, not a level one player.

A swift investigation revealed why. While I'd lost all my experience and even my name, I'd kept my titles. I had nearly three hundred of them by now, one for each of the solo boss kills, one for about every other field boss, others for completed quests or random things like killing over one thousand giant rats. Most had only active bonuses and only one title could be used at a time, but a number of them had stacking bonuses like +1 agil or +5% damage versus swarming enemies. Little things, but they added up. More so than one might think at first glance.

This changed everything, from a leveling perspective. Experience was more than just exponential. There was also a bonus for fighting mobs above one's level, as well as fighting a high number in an hour or fighting multiple mobs at once. Anything that allowed someone to get ahead of the curve, even if it was just thanks to +1 HP regen, could drastically reduce leveling time. A skilled player with good items could gain four or five times the experience in an hour that players farming underleveled gray mobs would. With my stats, at least in the early levels, a 10,000% exp boost wasn't out of the question. In a single day I could gain twenty levels or more, provided I could get my hands on a decent weapon. But that all assumed I was able to get my stupid body to move properly. I'd be lucky to lift a sword in my current state, let alone swing one.

A budding curiosity had me search for the newest title I must have earned. Soon enough there it was, Slayer of the Divine. The passive was a very solid +5% piercing, allowing my hits to ignore a portion of enemy armor. The active component was even more intriguing. It cancelled all enemy health regeneration for the duration of battle. In most cases I'd still prefer using the Giantslayer title I gained from the twenty-fifth boss, as it gave +20% damage versus every mob bigger than me (which was basically all of them), but it could prove deadly useful against certain bosses and regenerators like the various troll species.

Beneath that title was another new one that I hadn't anticipated. Perfect Rebirth, Divine Body. "This…" It was too good, to the point of being broken if this were a normal game. Twenty percent reduction to all damage, even non-physical damage? I could wear simple leather armor and have the same protection as a tank wearing heavy plate. It wasn't entirely suited to my playstyle, but it was the sort of absurd buff that I'd have to be crazy to turn down. And best of all, it was a passive effect that didn't have to be equipped.

Despite currently being unarmored save for some ragged cloth, between my +13 armor from other sources and that damage reduction buff I was already as well protected as a level six player. A few bits of ten-copper cloth armor would raise that to level nine. With that much and my absurd health for a level one player, it would be impossible for the boars outside the city to kill me even if I sat still or lied down for a nap to replenish my ever-low energy stores. A few kills and I'd be able to start repaying Sasha for her kindness. I might not even have to swing anything, those boars were dumb enough to run right onto a spear I could brace against the ground. Well, assuming I could get her to loan me some money for equipment first.

"Hey there cutie." A man sat down beside me, large and looming. The scent of him wrinkled my nose, as apparently he hadn't gotten the memo that sweating had been added to the game. Or perhaps like so many in the starting town, he was so weak that he was too busy scrounging for food to worry about bathing. Either way my response would be the same.

"Go away," I said with what little energy I could muster. With painful slowness I levered myself back to a sitting position and smoothed out my dress from where the hem had bunched up a few inches. I still felt more exposed than I liked with the man so close and so intently staring. Compared to the casual appraisal from the newspaper salesman, this felt like an entirely different and far fouler feeling on my skin.

"Leafa, is it?"

I cringed, not liking the sound of it on his tongue. I would have liked to just be me, but as days passed I'd grown to somewhat like the name and the comforting anonymity it cast over my shameful circumstances. I'd gotten used to being called Leafa, but I didn't like the system that allowed names to be seen while in town. At least in real life a man would have to ask to find out a girl's name.

His hand touched my knee and I felt my lip curl like I'd taken a bite of something foul. Was I overreacting? This felt wrong to me, but it had been a long time since I'd interacted normally with other guys, and I wasn't a girl then.

"How old are you, seventeen?" he asked. I noticed only after he'd finished speaking that he'd moved into a more casually close position to me, his hand on my bare thigh rather than my knee, my dress pushed up an inch or two.

"Fifteen," I replied with some irritation. I wondered if I should have said the age of my avatar rather than myself but either way he was too old for me even if his mere presence didn't disgust me.

"They say we've been in here over a year now. You're probably sixteen by now, eh? Legal in my district, haha. Not that that matters. We're never getting out of here, so how about I show you how to have some fun?"

His other hand grabbed my breast, groping it just hard enough to cause me to gasp from pain. "Stop." My voice was fainter than it should have been. A bone-deep weariness gripped me. All I wanted to do was lie down and retreat into unconsciousness forever.

Two seconds passed before the System produced a warning and bumped his hands away from my body. Two seconds felt like an awfully long time. Was the system overtaxed by all the upgrades Kayaba had added, or did he just think no harm could be done from a quick grope? Just thinking about him and his connection to this event made me angry. The anger gave me the strength to stand but the man was quick to step in front of me, far quicker than my own feeble movements. What little strength I'd martialed was like a guttering flame. I wished dearly to be anywhere but here, even if my soul had to separate from my body to do it. This wasn't supposed to be my life.

"Come on," said the man. "Turn off your restrictions and I'll teach you some real nice things. It's not your real body anyways, right? So don't worry so much."

"... not my real body," I murmured. It was a refrain I'd heard a thousand times before, but it sounded different coming from him. My natural response to reject everything he said had me looking at the phrase in a new light.

Every time I was forced to wear some ridiculous new piece of bikini armor or suffered pain or exhaustion during my quest to beat the game, I'd comforted myself by remembering that none of it was real. That my body was just a mask, an illusion. But this felt real. Felt wrong. Was it a mistake to reject this world so thoroughly? Because the more I thought about it the more I thought my disbelief was the cause of my current issues. To try so hard only for my rebirth to put me back in the body of my sister was so disheartening that I'd disassociated worse than ever.

Was it time for a new path? I wasn't sure any longer that I could reach my goals if I kept treating this like a game where nothing truly mattered. At least for now I needed to treat this like reality. A true world that could affect me. A world that I should change rather than accept the problems that came my way. Only by entrenching myself further into Aincrad could I find the strength to destroy this world once and for all.

My conviction was far from heartfelt, not yet, but it was a new path, a new direction. It was enough to make my body feel less like a lifeless mannequin, muscles tensing as I prepared myself. Rather than letting the disgust I felt for him and everything about this encounter push me towards apathy I turned it into energy instead. Energy that ached for violence. It wasn't much, but it was enough for what I needed.

With the aid of the step I was standing on I had enough height to let gravity aid me. Speed like I'd once known was still far beyond me, but I put my full body weight behind my arm as I drove it into his solar plexus. Perhaps I'd underestimated myself, or overestimated the resistance of a player in the starting city, because he buckled instantly and went flying across the alley. He lacked the air to cry out as he thumped against the immovable wall on the other side but his face was quite expressive as he slid to the ground.

I walked over to him, curious. "Are you in pain?" I'd wondered for a while now if I was the only one who felt pain so clearly. If it was another "gift" from Kayaba or something entirely in my mind, existential danger interpreted as something more relatable.

He didn't answer, clutching his stomach as he gasped for breath on the ground. But he didn't entirely look like he was in pain. Just struggling to breath and feeling like he was dying of suffocation, an unpleasant experience I was unfortunately familiar with after the snake pits of level 8 and the gross tentacled plant monsters of level 47 that I tried my best to forget. It seemed that either feeling pain was unique to me alone, or a realism update that required a high level to unlock.

I wondered how the front liners were doing if the latter were true. How many would falter upon feeling real pain and retreat to hide in the safe zones? Or would it just lessen their bravery, cause them to only fight far weaker monsters that couldn't hurt them and in doing so slow their exp progress even further. Either way it could cripple their progression through the floors. Well, assuming they got past Michael to begin with.

I focused back on what I knew, what was right in front of me. He was starting to recover, but the rage in his eyes was tempered by a healthy dose of fear. Strength in this game was largely not determined by physical dimensions, and perhaps I wasn't even the first to teach him that lesson.

I was tempted to give him a good kick but repeated assault in a safe zone might cause the guards to throw me in prison and I lacked the money to pay the fine. Besides, I doubted kicking him inside the protection of the safe zone was worthy punishment anyways. It was already surprising that I'd managed to inconvenience him as much as I had. Wasn't the safe zone protection stronger than this back in the beta?

"Blade6," I said, reading his name for the first time. "I'll remember that name. Don't let me see it again or this won't be the worst you get."

A rather hollow threat given I doubted he ever left the city for more than a few minutes if at all, but he seemed to take it seriously. Wise of him, because I was feeling dark enough to find a way around the safe zone protections if he ever tried to touch me again.

I left without looking back, only my ears alert for subterfuge. While not as sharp as my wolf ears were, they were still better than they were in the real world. Now that I was on alert there was no way the flat-footed beginner would catch me off guard again.

It was time to get stronger. Even this haven from monsters wasn't truly safe, and I still felt I had a role to play. But for right now I just needed to focus on walking back to the orphanage for a well deserved nap.

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