"Are you here for the event boss, Kirigaya-san?"

Kazu was startled hearing a familiar voice greet her on the way home after dropping Asuna off at her home. She was about to mount up on her motorcycle but the voice stopped her.

"Event boss?"

She turned and saw the familiar face of Eiji, formerly known in SAO as Nautilus. He had an excited expression on his face when he realized she wasn't familiar. There were a few other familiar faces in the gathering which had populated the sidewalk. Klein, Yuuna, as well as a few other members of the Alt guild and Fuurinkazan were present for the supposed event.

"I was wondering why some of our friends were no shows recently in the shared server, I guess this event is the culprit?"

Eiji nodded.

"This event is part of a global AR game released by the people who took over Sword Art Online's assets. They really got the jump on the opportunity. The game is called Ordinal Scale. Here, I'll invite you to our raid party and it'll auto load into your AR so we can take on the event boss together. The fastest way for someone with your skill to understand is to experience it first hand after all."

She got an invite window she immediately accepted and she shot an invite to Asuna, who quickly joined the group a minute later, just short of the countdown to the boss appearing hitting "0".

The entire area felt like they were transported into the same place in an alternate dimension. The alternate dimension mimicking a ceiling less familiar boss room to her. An equally familiar boss monster appeared as well and to the accuracy of her memory, the boss had the same name. It was the first floor ascension boss of Aincrad.

"Do you remember this guy's mechanics?"

Eiji gave a sly expression as he confidently spoke to Kazu.

"I may never forget. Well, how do you want to go about this? It seems we don't get much prep. Free for all?"

Eiji nodded in response and then swiftly dashed toward the giant obese kobold with his short sword drawn. Kazu looked to Asuna and the two of them sprinted in toward the boss, closing the distance fast enough to catch up to Eiji. There were dozens of people participating in the event. It was dazzling seeing several magic-like effects in a real life space. Environment shattered when the kobold's cleaver would hit anything, but the real environment wouldn't suffer any damage.

Eiji was especially impressive during the fight, managing to successfully pull enmity from Kazu several times, but after it dropped past the half hit points range, it was stun locked by the dozens of spells, projectiles, and the onslaught of melee fighters bashing it in near perfect synchronization. It didn't even get a chance to enrage and toss its cleaver for its katana. The monster shattered just like in SAO when a monster would die as soon as its hit points dropped to 0, and the area changed back from a mimic of the first floor boss room in SAO, to the park they had all been in before the event started.

Everyone from the melee fighting group huffed deeply as their physical exertions caught up to them. It didn't need much to say, but fighting with their real bodies was a tougher exertion than fighting in VR. It was good exercise, and it from first impression the locations the game picked weren't dangerous.

"Did you get any loot?"

Eiji was much friendlier than he had been back in SAO, but that had been his personality ever since. They had several small conversations in the shared server, and it was usually about finding a new game to really invest in.

"I did, let's check..."

Kazu glanced over the loot window which popped up for her. Some new items that weren't in SAO as well as the last hit bonus which had existed in SAO previously. She sighed and put it into the raid loot for anyone to take. It didn't offer her any stats worth overwriting her crafted VR gear which she was automatically equipped with.

"Did you level up?"

Kazu and Asuna both nodded. They had both risen one level from the encounter. It didn't feel like a lot when they checked the levels of others in the surroundings. Level 18 was the highest level in the crowd.

"How about rank?"

They checked over their ranking and were surprised.

[Bonus reward for the top damage dealt in this event is shared between newcomers Kirito and Asuna!]

It was an area announcement. It took a bit for it to show up, probably prompted by them checking their rank status. In the rank list it showed several things such as teamwork bonus, leadership bonus, top damage, and damage avoidance. Since neither took any damage at all, they were in a sense showing how to avoid mechanics and they worked flawlessly with their raid team, it appeared that they shared the #1 rank of the event.

"That's...a little embarrassing. It's a boss we fought together a long time ago. Really though, this was fun. Ordinal Scale...you should fill us in more about this later. Ela-san can't join us tonight in the shared server, but it will be nice to get to know more about this game you have been hiding from us."

Klein drooped his arms around Kazu and Asuna's shoulders, and sighed.

"If we told you about the game a week ago when it first released, it would have been a death sentence to our chances of getting high ranks in the game. Eiji went and spoiled it by inviting you but that was a lot of fun. Really reminded me of our experiences in that game."

Kazu and Asuna nodded, both ducking away from him at the same time, setting him off balance and he flopped on his butt.

"I guess that makes sense. But the more sensible reason would be our work and school life. Doesn't really explain how Eiji is keeping up with it, but I suppose this kind of gaming is more up your alley than joining study groups and testing the games Ela's kids have been making."

Yuuna interrupted the conversation and closed the real reason on them.

"The real reason is as you suggest. You both were more concerned with work and school so you must not have had the chance to check the email with the invite to Ordinal Scale. We would have let you know to check sooner, but your work is more important. As far as school is concerned, we've been keeping up with our studies. I think Kazu and Asuna are the last to join out of everyone..."

Yuuna was checking over her game contact list for Ordinal Scale and all of them were present now. They really were the last to join Ordinal Scale.

"Sorry for not letting you know sooner."

She apologized with a solemn expression on her face.

"No, it's fine! I really appreciate that you were keeping how busy we were in mind."

Asuna was the first to respond and Kazu followed it up.

"Unfortunately we might not be able to fully join into this game just yet since we have a lot of work on our plates, but we might just hit up a fight if one spawns nearby us when we're not pressed for time getting from place to place or at work or school. Thank you for this experience though. It's definitely caught my interest for sure."

Kazu had a genuinely happy expression. Asuna looked at her and her own expression brightened up with her own smile. After a stress filled day of unfortunate misunderstandings and bad timing in revealing secrets, they really needed something introduced to them they could blow off steam with together.

Another few minutes and most of the crowd had dispersed to head home. Kazu and the rest as well headed off for home. Kazu was in a good mood after that. She hummed and nodded happily to the battle tune that played for them as they fought before. It was nostalgic even though back in Aincrad, it was a stressful theme which might be the last thing they would hear before dying.

A battle popped up for Kazu on the way home while she was driving and the individual event was labeled [Knocked off the Steed]. She was startled by it, and as soon as she saw the lizard man riding a horse, she equipped a throwing knife using her thoughts to pilot the AR menu and steadied herself before throwing the virtual knife into the snout of the horse which immediately bucked, throwing the lizard man off, and the lizard man was crushed under vehicles on the other side. The fact that the lizard man and horse didn't effect opposing traffic in the slightest showed that none of the other drivers were seeing what she saw and it was definitely part of Ordinal Scale. It was dangerous. An event that would come up while driving? That was incredibly dangerous. She should have just ignored the prompt to enter the event. She managed to keep herself steady though and that helped. If she was spotted by a police officer however, that would quickly revoke her current license. Distracted driving was something very easily punishable.

[You have gained 100 experience points]

[You obtained the material item, lance prototype]

[You obtained 10,000 G]

Those were the rewards for participating in the event. As interesting as it was, it probably wasn't worth the risk.

[You obtained the unique title: Chariot Hero]

[You obtained the unique title: Danger Seeker]

She blinked once and shook off the notifications, turning off Ordinal Scales until she finished making it home. She turned it back on when she arrived home and checked the rest of the notifications which had shown up for defeating the driving event.

[You obtained the uncommon title: Untouchable I]

[You obtained the status: Solo Event Magnet]

She read over the information for everything she received from the event while she was driving and she sighed. First with the last notification, Solo Event Magnet meant since she had defeated the solo event within a single attack, she would have solo events spawn around her frequently for the next three days. Untouchable I as the title suggests was the first of a series of untouchable titles, rewarded for going through an event unharmed. The first title was for surviving two events consecutively without being hit, the next of the series was for ten events without being hit, then twenty five, and then for fifty, and a hundred after that for the final one. Going so many events consecutively without being hit would be difficult for anyone. There were rewards for the titles though, special conditions they gave the wearer. Untouchable series increased the chance of receiving the Solo Event Magnet status.

The unique title Chariot Hero's information stated that it was unique to horse or motorcycle riders who accept a rare event prompt when it shows. A one time occurrence which gives a significant reward in exp scaling on current level. The status the title gave was that when worn while driving, gives the ability to summon more chariot battles which continue to give boosted experience gain. According to the information, it's safest to do such battles in controlled environments, like a cleared horse racing space, or a clear parking lot.

The Danger Seeker title was as the name suggests, a title rewarded to people who complete an event in a very dangerous or illegal situation to do so. The effects of the title were that when worn, you obtain exponentially more currency from events if you take no damage.

She shook her head and closed out Ordinal Scale before another event would show up. She headed into the house and Suguha shouted that since Kazu was late, she was making dinner.

The rest of the night, Kazu was in a conflicted state of mind. Was she really that interested in Ordinal Scale anymore when there were titles like she earned? Certainly the reward of the Danger Seeker title was significant, but it wasn't worth risking a person's life. Chariot Hero was probably rare enough that very few would ever try it, but both made her wonder if there were more dangerous to obtain titles that people would chase after to get the bonuses. For a game, people would lose some of their morals. It depended on how seriously a person took a game however. As long as people can separate their real life from a game, it wasn't so dangerous. Something that was able to be "on" all the time was dangerous in that case due to the game blending into reality so much.

Her mind wandered to Yuuki at that point. If she could project out to any augmented environment, she could play such a game all the time, because she wasn't bound to her physical body. There was a way around it, to project out to augmented environments and do everything that way. She understood eventually that the dangers weren't so bad.

Ordinal Scale was a very interesting concept, and she wondered if Ela had a hand in it. It was certainly something that felt like her level of ability. Spreading the augmented network over physical area, applying the augmented network over physical environments to generate solo or larger scale events. Filling the physical, real world with augmented reality. The more people on the network, the faster it would spread. It was basic in concept but the delivery of giving people the ordinal scale map, giving people discovery bonuses for venturing into new areas, it was all significant. Spreading out more and more releases of the AR devices was also part of her plan. Her goal to change the world seemed more and more realistic.

Ela impressed Kazu more and more without even being proven part of the creation of Ordinal Scale. Kazu's mind went at top speed figuring out whatever could link her to something that was inexplicable or too much to be done by anyone else so soon. It truly was too soon for something like Ordinal Scale unless the intent with it was to get people to spread the augmented network far and wide.

The most truly impressive thing to Kazu however, was that she finally understood how the augmented network worked. Connected by the experiences of an AR user, the network branches out and spreads to physical location. Which makes it possible to have perfect network connection anywhere, with time. Kazu recalled being told that the network was only connected to the user, which made her question herself, but she knew that it only made sense no matter how she questioned her conclusion. The network connects to the user, and therefore the network connects to the area around the user, and finally it means that the network gets to be laid out by happily willing participants in the first major AR game in history.

There were some moral gray points she had to concede however. If the network always connected to the users, then to some degree the network was always connected to her. It would be inconceivable for Ela to be hacked enough to let anyone into the AR network security and allow criminal activity, but a game which flirted with dangerous activity outright? It felt like something she might not do while something she would do. Goals sometimes get clouded by the means to get there. Kazu only hoped that Ela truly was behind part of the game, or else she would be extremely disappointed.

She wanted to keep Ela on a pedestal. Ela was an example of someone who struggled, someone who nearly lost her life to the dedication of helping others. She achieved dozens of immense accomplishments. She was rash however, short sighted at times and like any other person, retrospective and full of regret. She wore her regrets like tattoos on skin she always had exposed, in spite of only showing herself in full body armor or clothes which covered all but her neck and face. She was like a saint who nearly lost her life for the sake of others.

"Are you okay, mama?"

Yui's words of concern jolted Kazu out of her thoughts concerning Ela's involvement with Ordinal Scale.

"I'm okay, just a little worried about Ela-sensei. She's getting used to such an intense situation right now, and working on a way to save herself. I hope that it works. I also had a bit of thought toward the possibility she was involved in making that new Ordinal Scale game."

Yui giggled and hugged Kazu's waist.

"Ela-sensei will be fine! And as far as the creation of Ordinal Scale, her name is on the production team list when you go into the release information. Mama's intuition is so good!"