Disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of the SAO series. I really enjoyed it and I feel it was a great story. However, what was an amazing concept got caught up in the restrictions of its genre and lost out on the huge potential it had. This story is intended to build on the ideas and questions introduced in the original show from the perspective of an OC. Constructive criticism is more than appreciated as this is my first time putting my work on the web, and I figured here is as good a place as any.

Stage VII: Infection of a Memory

TIMESTAMP: 10 November 2022, 12:43:33, Floor 001

A bead of sweat dripped down onto his face. It was impressive, actually. The man had managed to replicate the exact feeling of having a liquid impact your skin. Although, the visuals were not quite as good. Apparently it was difficult to render the texture of a constantly-changing object.

He stood up, using the butt of his spear as support. The small creature he had just defeated had already disappeared in a shower of polygons. There was a small whistle behind him.

"Not bad!" Balti said cheerfully. "And with that skinny old stick too!"

"Hey now," he replied, trying to cover up his tiredness. "Don't be thinking you're cool just cause you use a sword." He felt like he should spin the spear here for dramatic effect, but he didn't quite have enough control yet.

"Ah, but that's where you are wrong, my friend," Balti said, imitating an aristocratic voice. "You see, I am the great Marquis de Balti, and my sword shall slay all in my path!" He finished off with a slick twisting of an imaginary mustache.

A small laugh rang through the air. Auran brushed a strand of hair out of the way and peered around. Elia was giggling, her hand over her mouth. Another little laugh escaped.

"Oh hoh!" Balti continued, switching to a highly inaccurate French accent. "Is mademoiselle ready to proceed?"

"Yeah," Elia laughed again.

"Then let us be off!" the swordsman declared, stepping into a grand march. Auran wiped some more sweat off his face and turned around. Truth be told, they had been trudging through this dungeon for a while now, and it showed no sign of being cleared. He was about to follow in Balti's footsteps when something caught his eye.

It was Calin, the man Riku had recruited for their little quest. The man was looking down at the ground, barely paying attention to what was going on around him. Auran was surprised nobody had commented yet. As the rest of the group began moving through the impossibly wide stone passage, he stepped over to the side, next to the older man.

The stubble-coated mouth didn't even twitch as seven pairs of leather boots continued to walk down the currently empty hallway.

"Hey," Auran said tentatively.

Calin almost jumped at him. He felt lucky his companion hadn't had his blade out, or he might have been slashed to ribbons.

"What do you want?" the man asked gloomily, calming down.

"Oh, sorry," Auran apologized. "Didn't mean to scare you. I just felt like talking to you. You've seemed so depressed this entire time."

"Do I?" the man responded. "Uh, sorry about that. I just—well, you know how it is. I want to get out of here as much as you do."

"I understand perfectly," Auran said, and he really did. "So, do you know your friend over there in real life? Is he your son or something?"

"No, no. We—we met on the first day. He—he rescued me before I almost died—uh, taught me the rules. Yeah, that's it."

For the first time Calin looked up. He glanced around the walls of the passage and up ahead. The rest of the group seemed to have already turned a corner.

He stopped walking. Auran took another step before pausing and peering over at his teammate quizzically.

"What's wrong?"

The man looked around nervously again. The group must be twenty feet or so further down the passageway.

"Well, I—"

Suddenly, the man's statement was interrupted by a gut-wrenching scream. It was the kind he had only read about in books, the scream a human only lets out when they are in danger of losing their life.

Someone screamed his name.

"Thomas!"

They used his real name. It was more than enough time to jolt him out of his conversation. Pumping adrenaline into his legs—or, what felt like adrenaline, but his mind was racing far too fast to think about that—he reversed direction instantly, breaking into a sprint in speeds he never could have accomplished in his real body. He covered the ground to the corner in seconds, directing his vision down the passageway and taking in the scene as quick as he possibly could.

The first thing he noticed was Worm, dagger out but pressed against the wall, slumped down and sitting, waving the weapon wildly as best he could while no longer standing. The second thing his eyes aimed themselves at was the creature in front of the black-haired 15-year-old. It was a red…thing, a virtual demon of lizard-like appearance. In its hands was a large, white-tinted stick, and it was aiming it directly at worm.

"Lower Kobold."

That was the name that appeared on the display in Auran's mind. He didn't even take the time to read it. He had to do something—the thing was raising the weapon for another strike.

Worm was about to be killed. He could tell because there was exactly one out of seven HP bars flashing in the corner of his eyesight. Not that he knew which one for sure, but the very fact that there was something blinking in his peripheral vision meant that he had to do something.

He had to save Worm. No way was he about to let his friend die in here.

Barely even conscious of the movements his arm was making, he grabbed the long-handled spear strapped to the leather armor of his back. The club was ceasing to rise and beginning its descent. A descent that would smash its way right through the small dagger providing feeble resistance, to impact on the body of his friend. He had to do something.

He had to do something.

He had to do something.

The spear came dislodged, and in the same motion, he pulled it back. It was like everything was happening in slow motion. He always saw it like this in the movies, but he didn't think it would happen for real.

g—

The spear flew through the air.

He had thrown it. More than thirty feet away, he couldn't have done anything at close range. There was a large gap in the rest of the party members, who were probably too shocked at having Worm's HP blown away in so few strikes.

The weapon whistled through the virtual air, the virtual space, its trajectory being calculated by a computer hundreds of miles away—

The point slammed into the ground five feet behind the kobold.

He had missed. It didn't even graze the thing, missing by more than a foot.

It…had missed. There wasn't anything else he could do. Worm was going to die, and it was all his fault.

He stood there, empty-handed, arm still extended in the violent throwing position. Time seemed to have stopped all around him.

He had missed.

Reality snapped back into focus.

A clang echoed off the stone of the floor. It was on the other side of the humanoid monster, but it was enough to distract it for half a second. An almost inaudible grunting noise echoed from its mouth.

And then—a sword swung upwards. It was a steel sword, part of the starting gear distributed at the beginning of the insane game. It ripped into the crimson skin of the lizard, scattering particles of light both violently and gracefully. A screech resounded off the walls as the enemy tumbled backwards from the force of the blow. A figure stood up, weapon at the ready, before charging again and bringing it down.

There was a sickening crunch. Auran thought it was bones breaking before he realized—the person had slammed the blade through the stick and directly through the kobold's chest.

The thing screeched again, but the monotonous sound effect was cut off as it froze and shattered into the air, its existence completely erased.

Auran could barely even process what had just happened. He had missed. Worm was going to die. But then someone saved him. Someone—with a sword—

He looked up slowly. The person who was panting over where the body of the defeated monster, Worm behind him looking panicked, was—

A boy. Not just any boy. The boy who had joined their party as a member of the group.

PoH.

Never mind that. He could attend to the boy later. For now, he had to help Worm up. He broke into a jog, but after a few steps he stopped in his tracks.

In one hand, PoH held a sword, so casually one might have thought he had been trained in it. The other, he extended in a gesture of assistance to the last party member.

Auran looked back and forth between the two teenagers. He corrected himself—PoH was young enough to look twelve. The scene was certainly one of the odder things he had seen in his life.

The younger boy helped the older one to his feet. The ever-present smile had returned to his face. With a speed far faster than Auran ever could, PoH opened his menu and ejected a pair of healing potions. They materialized in a flash of data, and he dropped them into Worm's gloved hand. The boy drank them greedily.

The flashing stopped.

He stood frozen, locked in place, staring at the location where the spear lay lodged in the cracks between the stones.

There came a jab in his gut. Slowly and methodically, he turned his head. It was Riku. The axe-wielder gave him a look.

Trying desperately to stay calm, he straightened up and strolled casually over to where Worm was standing. PoH withdrew a small canteen of water from his inventory and handed it over to Worm.

"W-worm? Are you alright?" he asked nervously.

"Y-yeah," the black-haired boy responded. "J-just a little shook up is all."

Auran noticed his hands were trembling violently. A few drops of water splashed out of the container as he handed it back to PoH.

"Dude," came a voice. Auran turned around to see Balti approached from where he had been standing silently. "That was an impressive save back there."

"No, no," PoH said modestly. His young-sounding voice conflicted with the words coming out of his mouth. "All I did was help out a friend. You guys are my party members, after all."

Worm wiped some water off his lip. "Th-thanks. I don't know what happened to me out there, I just froze up."

"Thank you, PoH. I appreciate you assisting my party member." Riku joined the small circle. "I think everybody is a little bit tired after that incident. How about we call off this expedition for now?"

"I think—yeah, I think that would be a good idea," Auran added tentatively. To tell the full truth, he was furious at himself for missing with his spear and failing to save Worm. It was his fault his friend had almost died, and if PoH hadn't been there, he would have been dead, before they even got off the first floor. How in hell were they supposed to clear 100 floors of this if there was a near-death experience every few days?

"Come on, let's go," Balti said. "Are you alright, Elia?"

The little girl nodded. Auran hadn't even noticed she had joined them, he had been so focused on the fact that he had missed.

His ponytailed friend took her hand and began heading back down the hallway. "Good for you. Those monsters don't scare you, do they?"

She shook her head. "Not a chance!"

"That's my Elia!" he laughed. "Let's head back to town."

Auran looked at Riku. The gamer's face was hard to read—it could have been interest, or relief.

The other three filed past him, their leather shoes taking step after step on the worn rock floor. The young preteen—the boy who had saved Worm—was the last in line. Auran was about to fall in behind him when the boy spoke.

"Aren't you missing something?"

He was about to question what when he remembered. The spear—the spear he had thrown. The spear he had missed with.

"R-right," he stuttered, spinning on his heel and jogging over to where the weapon lay, its point buried in the ground. The wooden shaft seemed to be mocking him, asking why he had missed. Why he had missed. Why he had missed. Why he had missed. Why he had—

"Auran? You coming?" He looked up to see the Worm tilting his head questioningly at him.

"Y-yeah," he answered quickly. "Give me a sec." With a small grunt, he pulled the spear out of the stone and picked it up.

He slung it over his back and hurried to catch up with the rest of the group making their way out of the dungeon.

TIMESTAMP: 05 December 2022, 08:14:58, Floor 001, Tolbana

"Auran! Auran, wake up!"

There was something shaking him. No—somebody. Who was it? It was a very high-pitched voice, almost like a child. Wait—it was a child. Why was there a little kid trying to wake him up?

He opened his eyes groggily. He was in a wooden room, laying on a mat on the floor. A tiny pair of hands were shaking him on the shoulder. A tiny pair of hands attached to a tiny body—

He sat up wearily. "Okay, okay Elia. I'm up. I'm up." He ran his hands through his hair. It was rather nice that hair didn't have to be cleaned or anything in here.

He looked around. Well, for once he wasn't the last one up in their surprisingly spacious inn room. Worm's ridiculously skinny body was still laying curled up on his grey mat.

He dragged his tired legs out of bed. It had been—nearly a month since they had been locked into virtual reality. No signs of outside interference had appeared.

Not a single person had discovered the location of the boss room.

Riku had been analyzing the population of the tiny town the five had been staying in for now. Tolbana was the closest location to the tower leading to the next floor, unless they decided to camp out, which would not have been a smart idea. Despite having very little knowledge of how gaming worked, especially compared to the provisional team leader, even he knew that would not have been the best plan.

With the practice one month's worth of repetition had afforded him, he pinched his fingers together and brought up the translucent menu. The familiar options stared back at him, as did a small diagram of his character.

Since they had taken to challenging the dungeon every day, he had begun actually earning experience at a visible rate again. However, these past two days had slowed down his growth at about level 8—he had a feeling he was hitting that levelling cap Riku was talking about again.

Luckily, there hadn't been a single time anyone's HP had taken a serious hit like two weeks ago since. He had come to the conclusion that it must have been a fluke, a glitch in the random number generator.

Just like every day, he selected the basic leather armor and starting wooden spear, materializing them other his clothing. Two days ago Balti begged to be allowed the next stage up in weaponry, but Riku insisted that the Col must be saved and distributed to keep everyone's gear on roughly the same page.

To some extent, he had succeeded. Since they were still on the first floor, no one had managed to acquire sufficient funds to purchase anything worth of purchasing.

He felt the familiar fingerless gloves cinch down tightly on his wrists. They had come with the starting gear, and he had grown accustomed to wearing them. The bonus they gave in gripping his spear was minimal, but still measureable.

Plus they looked cool.

As terrified as he was, he found it surprising that he was still interested in appearances. If anything, it just made him even more scared of himself.

He stood up and smiled at Elia. She rewarded him with a big grin. That was one of the few things that kept him going. Even if he didn't make it out of here alive, he had to make sure she did.

The door was partially cracked open, probably from when Riku had gotten up earlier. There was an internal alarm clock able to be set from the menu, but he tried that once and didn't really like it. He preferred to be woken up by a real human. His chubby friend, on the other hand, was a different story.

The stairs creaked as he made his way downstairs. The NPC innkeeper smiled and nodded at him in exactly the same manner as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. Out of habit, Auran returned the nod before proceeding out the main door.

The sunlight streamed into his eyes. He found Riku had been allowing them to sleep in later and later instead of getting up at 6:30 in the morning, although as to why he could only guess. His friend appeared to be waking himself just as early as always.

His leather shoes kicked up a little bit of dirt as he took a few steps forward before he realized something.

There was nobody around the inn.

Normally there would have been quite a few players circling the wooden structure, buying and selling weapons, looking for party members, or just sitting around and observing.

The current population of the immediate vicinity consisted of an NPC and three chickens.

There had to be something wrong. Where was everybody?

He took a few more steps forward. The place was definitely empty.

A bell sound rang out as he brought up his menu. While the past month had been incredibly boring, running his spear through monster after monster, it had not been without its perks. This was one of them.

After trudging through hundreds of hallways and exploring far too many dead ends, one of his skills had gained enough to actually prove useful. It was his Tracking skill.

It had taken a while to understand how to use it, but Riku was more than helpful, instructing him along the way. He scrolled down and selected the skill, then activated it.

For a few moments, his hearing reached astronomical levels. He could hear virtual bugs chirping, the wings of virtual birds flapping, but more importantly, he could hear people.

He temporarily recoiled in surprise at how loud the sound was comparatively. It was clearly coming from a single spot just outside of town, slightly to the east. He whipped his head around to face it before the annoyingly short effects of the skill faded.

Now that his senses were unaided, he really could hear the sounds of the large group, if only slightly. He inwardly punched himself for wasting the cooldown time on an unnecessary action. If Riku were here, he would have chastised him and reminded everyone to only activate skills in the case of emergencies. He really should take what the provisional leader said more seriously.

Auran turned and began walking down the small side path that led directly to the space outside of town where the players must be gathered. From what he could tell, it was a rather large group—probably at least two or three hundred players. That was certainly almost the entire population of Tolbana, although out of the ten thousand people trapped here, it wasn't quite that many.

It took about five or six minutes to come within hearing range of the group. For a mass of heavily armed warriors, they were surprisingly quiet.

He reached the outskirts of the town and looked outward. Tolbana was sort of on a hill, so its elevation was slightly above the surrounding area. Grassy fields stretched outward for miles away, and the biggest area was the only one large enough to hold all the people whose attention was all trained on the same object.

Auran scanned the crowd. As far as he could tell, it could have been an army—the vast majority were young men. At first glance, the average age seemed to be about twenty one or twenty two, with a few teenagers scattered throughout. There were a few older men as well, and only fifty or sixty percent of those present looked like they belonged in armor of the size they were wearing.

He was jerked out of his population analysis by a voice that swept over the crowd. Silence fell over the bickering players.

"My friends!"

The voice was young, but not too young. Certainly not a child—somewhat deep. It had a jovial ring to it; he could understand why the hundreds of working-age men fell silent.

"My name is Diabel. Thank you for attending my short announcement."

He finally got around to looking up at the player who was doing the speaking. The man was dressed in some rather expensive armor—the most basic in the steel plate line. He was rather surprised at himself to find that he recognized the type and attributes of the man just by clothing, even at this distance. There were still quite a few players between Auran and the man who went by Diabel.

"Players of SAO, you have been trapped here against your will, given an impossible objective, and expected to make your own way. Well I've got something to tell you—it's time to fight!"

Auran continued to analyze Diabel as he spoke. For some reason he had used another quite expensive in-game item to dye his hair a bright blue. It could possibly be for charisma reasons—

"Yesterday, my party and I discovered the first floor boss room."

His breath caught in his throat.

The boss room.

The key to the next floor.

The only way to advance. The way to get out of this game of death.

"Up till now, we've had more than 300 deaths. That's more than the number of people on this field. So I ask you now—are you going to be one of those statistics?"

He couldn't think straight. His mind was swimming. This man—this man had done it. They had a way out. He could see them now—conquering floor after floor, making their way out, returning triumphantly.

"The very fact that you are here, in Tolbana, means that you are one of the few who chose not to cower in the Town of Beginnings, to live while are you are here. I ask you again—are you going to fight?"

The man was doing an admirable job of rallying the players in front of him, especially considering that the tide was more than turned against him at the beginning. There were a few weak cries of support.

"There are two hundred and fifty of you currently in this field. If you are level 8 or above and are willing to come with me to challenge the boss tomorrow, there will be a second meeting held in the main plaza at 8:00 tonight. I hope to see each and every one of you there."

The boss room.

"Thank you."

His speech concluded, the man with the dyed hair stepped off the small rock he had been using as a pedestal to broadcast his voice over the crowd.

Auran's vision was blurry. What exactly was his level again? He couldn't even remember such a simple little number. It was eight—wasn't it?

"Auran."

A voice was coming from in front of him. His eyes snapped back into clarity.

Riku was standing five feet away, basic steel axe strapped to the leather armor on his back.

"Oh, Riku," he said happily. "You heard too. Isn't it great? We're going to challenge the boss tomorrow!"

"No," the gamer replied.

"What?"

"I said no. I forbid any of us from participating in the boss raid."

"What do you mean?" Auran asked. "Why the hell not? Isn't that the only way to beat the game?"

"I've made my decision, and it's final. We will continue to level grind as usual tomorrow, and we will not be anywhere near the boss room."

"You can't do this!" he shouted. Several of the members of the quickly dispersing crowd turned and looked at him, some muttering whispers of surprise. "We have a duty to get everyone out of here!"

"We have a duty to fucking stay alive!"

There was silence between the two teammates as the streams of people picked up speed with their evacuation. The roar of conversation was returning to the air.

The discussion over, Riku started to exit with the flow of people. His path took him closer and closer to Auran until he was feet away. Without another word, he passed by the spearman before melding into the mass of two hundred and fifty gamers.

A boy was left standing alone as a massive crowd made its way around him, wondering why he didn't move.