V: The Hollow Area, is not so hollow

As the sunset comes, vision in the forest turned dark quickly. Presto built a temporary campfire, grilling the boar meat he got with the wooden mechanism he made out of sticks. Sitting by the fire, and leaning his back on the greatsword he put into the ground, watching the tender meat cook above the flames, and all while Philia wolfing down the grilled boar.

"Nao, what's your cooking level? This is delicious!"

"Max level, all thanks to the undead 'skill' I hacked into, so that I can stop worrying about dying and do whatever I want, for example, always getting home to cook my dinner after farming mobs in the wild." he took another nip at the meat, "also, this tastes tasty is just because you haven't eaten in a while. Geez, how long have you not ate a thing? Slow down."

The dandelion hair girl looked up with blush and replied with her mouth full, "4 ays (days), afar (after) I ate al (all) the acup (backup) food." she then gulped down the meat, "Now stop asking questions and let me eat."

Presto saw the meat is thoroughly cooked, and leaned forward to take the piece away from the fire, took a small nip out of it.

Philia looked at him across the fire and pondered for a moment.

"So, how did you hack the game? What does it feel like to die?"

"I looked into the codes of the NerveGear, and accidentally removed the microwave "frying the brain" system. And to look at the codes, I kinda force hacked into the system. And so, when I die, the screen says 'You died', but then my consciousness is kept, after 10 seconds, I was then thrusted back into my avatar, no matter is it sliced in half, pinned down by a sword, or impaled by spikes. every time I get revived though, that pain is near unbearable, but still better than death." he looked in Philia's eyes across the fire as well and continued, "Nobody in the real life knows I cannot die, they thought that I am under the same 'brain-frying' curse as all of you are. So they haven't force removed my headset. Meanwhile, since this game doesn't have a logout button, no console of any sort can make a player log out. In essence, I'm stuck here, waiting to be saved. I can't die nor can I escape. Thus this isn't a game if I can feel nothing."

The two sat there in silence, as the fire cracks away making the only noise in the clearing.

"So care to tell me who wanted you dead?"

"This sounds really creepy and weird," Philia looked up to the starry sky, "But I killed myself."

"Killed yourself?"

"Well, she definitely looks like me, and wears like me, uses the same weapon I use, the only difference," she looked at the fire again, "is that she is like an empty shell with no soul in it. Then-"

"Hold on." Presto cut her off immediately, as he sensed they are surrounded by multiple entities.

The wind whispered through the woods, and it was strong enough to put out the fire, sparks flew with the current, and from there, a knife whizzed through the glowing particles, headed straight towards Presto. He crooked his head a little, and the dagger flew past him and struck the tree behind.

"They are here!" Philia stood up quickly, arming her dagger.

"Don't fight." Presto grabbed her hand and dragged her away running. "We are outnumbered."

The two ran through the woods, running only on paths that are lighted by the moon. Sounds of yelling and running were heard from behind. They ran as fast as they could, and soon enough, they made it out of the forest, only to be greeted by floating islands and a cliff.

Philia pointed to the right, "This way!"

They were about to make it down the slope, only to be stopped by human figures dashed out of the woods, swords drawn, and dashed right at them.

Presto had no choice but to fight. Just as he blocked the incoming strike from the attacker, he noticed all of them have red cursors above them.

"Player Killers? Now that explains a lot."

"No, they are not real players." Philia pointed out, "Look at their eyes."

As Presto looked into the attacker's eyes, he found that the eyes were soulless and clouded, diluted, a shade covers over their face. And yet again attacked the swordsman. He looked at the other attacker, and instantly recognized him, as a Player Killer who was caught and thrown in jail some time ago.

"What in the world…?" Presto could not believe himself.

"Nao! They are empty avatars of some kind, like AI. Just dodge and don't hurt them, because somehow the system recognizes them as players." Philia warned Presto while deflecting another attack, "That's how I got my orange cursor."

"Still, we have to get out of here!" Presto replied. He then noticed a tree that its trunk was cut halfway, and thought up of an idea.

"Philia, run to the slope!"

"Got it!"

As Philia dodge and dashed through the entities, Presto ran to the half-cut tree and held the sword with both of his hands.

"Please, SAO, your physics better work the same way as in real life." he murmured. Then he swung the enormous sword and cut through the gap, cleanly sliced apart the tree, and it started to creak and fell.

Only for it to land in the forest instead of the clear.

"What in the world are you doing, being a lumberjack, of all times?" An enraged Philia yelled at the entrance of the slope.

"I wanted to chop it down so it lands between them and you to block the path. I must have chopped it the wrong way." Presto sheathed his sword and ran towards Philia, grabbing her by the hand and running down the slope, while the pursuers were attracted by the tree.

"Well thanks, Captain Obvious. Because that plan clearly failed."


Are they chasing us?"

"No, I don't think so."

The two sat on the large branches of the tree, trying to avoid the pursuers. After they went down the slope, they ran yet again into a forest, and after some time, they came across a gigantic tree and decided to pass the night up its branches.

The two sat there, their topics of discussion have nearly run out, and only for Presto to break the ice again.

"What are you going to do when the sun rises? I'm going to find a way back into town."

"I do know where to go, but I can't get back to town because," Philia pointed at her orange cursor, "this. And it hasn't turned green."

The two then did not talk after that, and Philia decided to doze off, sleeping between two branches to prevent herself from falling.

After confirmed Philia was sound asleep, Presto activated his master console again and contacted Heathcliff.

"What are you calling me for this late?" a tired Heathcliff hologram appeared, "You should get some sleep too."

"Listen, there are player avatars that attacked us over here in Hollow Area. By us, I mean another player who is trapped here."

Heathcliff instantly became interested in the topic, and asked for more details, about the avatars and the orange cursor.

"Alright, as I said, Hollow Area is a very glitchy place with lots of bugs." Heathcliff started to break down events, "From what I can tell, these avatars are carbon copies of every single player in this game. Dead or alive. They are controlled by AIs that have a very similar personality as their true players. Philia probably met her own avatar, and while the system should have deleted the clone, it somehow didn't, and with the same glitch, it made Philia's mark permanently orange."

"Look, she already knew I can't die, and she believed me, but I cannot let her know that I have a master console, yet I also can't just leave her here. Do you have any idea what I can do?"

"Well, there should be some consoles on your side, you can try using them to fix her cursor, although, your best shot would be the console that controls the whole Hollow Area."

"Should be easy to deal with," Presto commented.

"One more thing, if you can, shut down the Hollow Area, things only get messier if they are not tended to."

"I'll see what I can do when I get there."

As they spoke, another pair of eyes reflected the blue holograms. Listening to the conversation.


"Philia, do you know anywhere that has a control panel? More specifically, the master console." Presto asked when Philia woke.

"Hmm? Master console? I know where it is." she replied. Presto turned around, there sat Philia, her dandelion hair all messy from the sleeping, and her eyes still half closed and drowsy. He couldn't hold in the laughter.

"Philia. You really have the worst bed-hair I've ever seen." he laughed.

"Sh-shut up! It's not like I don't know!" Philia flustered and start scratching her hair like crazy, and Presto sat there laughing while watching her going nuts about it. "Stop laughing or else I won't take you to the main console!"

"Yes, yes, milady."

"Not that too."

"It's still better than Ms Bedhair." he chuckled and start climbing down the tree. "Now please lead the way, I think I can help you with the cursor problem and get us out of here."

"Really?"

"A great chance to be exact."

Philia then jumped down from the tree and pointed to her right. "It's down that way. The underground control area."

As Presto and Philia walked through the forest in the direction, he could see that they were on top of a floating island. To their left was a huge black orb with glowing yellow lines snaked on it, supported only by a slim pillar of the same yellow lines. And to the right was an enormous hole that shaped like a swirl, sucking the matter around it into nothingness.

"We have to go to the orb, then from there, we can get to the hole, where the underground control area is. That way, we can avoid the high-level wild mobs."

"Sounds good to me. Lead the way."

The two walked for days to reach the orb, then a few days more to the hole. During the travel, the two talked about their own pasts and personal information, for example, Presto had one younger sister and one older sister and brother, and the whole family lived in Italy for some time until a few years ago. Philia, on the other hand, comes from a decent family, but like Presto, the reason she has blue eyes and dandelion blonde hair is family genes, although she was born and raised in Japan her whole life. Something more casual would be the things they like, Philia herself is a chocolate addict, whilst Presto could not stand spiciness one bit. The whole journey was fun and all, but behind the laughter, Philia had to make a painful decision.

As they approach the hole, the two decided to camp out in a clearing.

"I'll be back in 5 minutes!" Philia's last words printed in Presto's head. It was well over 5 minutes, and yet under Presto's detection skill, she was not on the radar, instead, a lot more entities closed up on him when he wasn't aware.

"Come out, whoever you are." Presto grabbed his greatsword by one hand, "I'll be sure to kill the last of you all."

The shadowy figures behind the tree came out one by one, all wearing hoods and cloaks, holding lightweight weapons.

"Where is Philia?" Presto calmly asked.

"You still care about her? Forget it, she is a hollow herself, just like us. The hollow killed the real player, and she was with us all the time." one of the hooded figures laughed maniacally.

"She works with the Prince of Blood. He let us realize killing is totally right in this game." the other said in a deep tone.

"And some days ago, we got a message from that little blonde player, saying she will set you up here to get killed." one more voice continued.

"No, she is a hollow, you dummy." the maniac voice replied, "We are supposed to confuse him!"

"I'm just not good at telling lies."

"You idiot hollow! Just let us do the-"

The voice discontinued as a large spear with a rectangle front, the metal tip out thrusted through the hollow's head.

"Now I see, hollows can actually talk. Now I shall kill all of you to get back to Philia." Presto retracted his weapon, as the avatar burst into pieces, and put his hood and mask on, extinguished the fire. As everything went black, the only thing remains glowing, is the blue eyes of the man in white.

The figures held up their weapons and ran towards him, yelling in union. In a slash that left a blue afterglow, most of the voices were muted, as Presto cleaved the area and cut those running for him into two halves. With more slashes and chops, the hollow army was utterly defeated, as Presto left the last person that announced himself "bad at telling lies" and pinned him to the ground, his cursor went from green to red in the single battle.

"Please! I will tell you everything! Don't kill me!" the hooded hollow pleaded.

"Now tell me where Philia went," Presto demanded.

"The control area! The- the black orb!" the hollow stuttered in fear.

"Why did I not ask her what was that orb called…" he removed the mask and hood, "Now go." he stood up and released the hollow, as he ran away into the woods with his tail between his legs.


"I'm sorry, Presto…" Philia ran towards the Control Area, tears falling from her cheeks, "but, you are not real, aren't you?"