Warning for this episode:
This chapter sticks closely to Kayaba's original speech, and since I didn't plan to break away from the story's overall framework just because Kazuma is here, there's a lot that overlaps. Please keep that in mind!
A flash of light filled my vision. I rubbed my eyes and opened them again, only to find myself back in the central plaza of the Town of Beginnings. In other words, I'd been warped back to the starting point.
Out of nowhere? Even though I hadn't done anything to trigger a warp?
Before I could untangle that chain of questions, countless people around me began warping in at incredible speed, just like when we first logged in.
'...Elia. Do you know what's going on right now?'
I muttered as quietly as I could and asked Elia what was happening, but no answer came back. Her connection had been fine just moments ago, and now it was cut off?
Something was wrong. Some kind of sudden, inexplicable situation was unfolding right in front of me. As if reflecting my thoughts, everyone around me was chattering in confusion, all trying to figure out what was going on.
The Town of Beginnings was a circular space roughly ten kilometers across, massive enough to fit an entire Tokyo ward inside it.
That meant the central plaza was enormous too—large enough to hold all ten thousand players, the game's maximum population.
The murmuring crowd was already deafening from sheer numbers alone... and then, all at once, as if they'd rehearsed it beforehand, everyone fell silent.
The reason was obvious. Even I could see a panel-like sign appear in midair with the word WARNING on it.
Looking closer, it was actually two English labels crossing over each other. In vivid red letters, they read [WARNING] and [System Announcement].
That lasted only an instant. Immediately after, countless more warning panels appeared, surrounding the entire plaza like a dome.
Then the center of the crimson pattern filling the sky began to drip downward, like a giant mass of blood.
It descended slowly, thick and viscous, and instead of simply falling, the red mass suddenly changed shape in midair.
What appeared was a giant human figure clad in a crimson hooded robe, easily twenty meters tall. Judging from the situation, that had to be...
"That famous GM, I guess..."
Of course, no one paid any attention to my quiet mutter. The countless players around me seemed to be thinking the same thing, whispering to each other.
"Huh? A GM?"
"Why doesn't it have a face?"
Then, as if to silence them, the giant robed figure suddenly moved its right arm.
A pure white glove appeared from the wide sleeve. But the arm and glove weren't actually connected, and there was no visible body at all.
Then it raised its left arm as well. Above the heads of ten thousand players, those ownerless white gloves spread wide, and it felt as though some faceless being had opened an invisible mouth.
A moment later, a low, calm male voice—one I felt like I'd heard somewhere before—rang down from high above.
[Players, welcome to my world.]
In a situation no one could understand, that giant figure looked down on us as though it were some all-powerful god.
The figure in the red robe lowered both sleeves and continued speaking to us.
[My name is Akihiko Kayaba. For now, I am the only human capable of controlling this world.]
"...Oh?"
So that was Akihiko Kayaba's in-game form. The wall I had to overcome—my goal—was right in front of me.
Sure, it was just an avatar, which took some of the impact out of it, but Kayaba was known for avoiding public exposure even in the real world, so that much made sense.
But more importantly... was this bizarre situation connected to him?
I found out only a few seconds later that it wouldn't take long for that question to be answered.
[I believe you have already noticed that the logout button has vanished from the main menu. However, this is not a game malfunction. I repeat: this is not a bug. This is one of the original purposes of [Sword Art Online].]
"...What?"
I'd been making dumbfounded noises this whole time, but I couldn't deny that they were completely genuine.
[From this moment on, none of you may log out of the game by your own will until you conquer the summit of this castle.]
As if to keep my sluggish brain from catching up, he pressed on without pause.
[Furthermore, the NerveGear must not be stopped or removed by outside human hands. If such an attempt is made—]
Silence fell for an instant.
Ten thousand people stopped breathing. I was one of them, but for some reason, somehow, I could already predict what he was about to say next.
And as the answer formed in my head, the words came out in that same calm voice.
[—the high-output electromagnetic waves emitted from the NerveGear's signal terminals will destroy your brains and terminate your lives.]
'You'll die.'
Now then, setting everything else aside, let's think about whether that was actually possible. No matter how insane it sounded, if it could really be done, then there was nothing to laugh off here.
The NerveGear generated faint electromagnetic waves from the countless signal terminals embedded inside the helmet, directly feeding sensory signals into the user's brainstem.
That much was public information. You could find it in the manual or online. To put it simply, the NerveGear basically worked on principles similar to a microwave.
If it had enough output, then yes—the NerveGear could rapidly vibrate the moisture in the human brainstem and use the resulting frictional heat to roast it alive.
So then, could it generate electromagnetic waves powerful enough to do that...?
Yes. It could.
As all those possibilities lined up one after another in my head, I let out a sigh at how absurd it all was. Come to think of it, nearly thirty percent of the NerveGear's weight was battery cells, wasn't it?
Still, in the 2020s, no one had ever imagined a situation like this. It was so far beyond normal assumptions that blaming myself for not considering it stopped almost immediately.
[To be more specific, the brain-destruction sequence will activate under the following conditions: ten minutes of external power loss, two hours of network disconnection, or any attempt to unlock, dismantle, or destroy the NerveGear itself. These conditions have already been announced in the outside world through the authorities and the media.]
[For reference, there have already been a small number of cases in which players' family members or friends ignored the warning and attempted to forcibly remove the NerveGear. As a result—]
Even though I was trying to steady myself by focusing on the technical side of things, he paused for a breath there.
[—regrettably, 230 players have already been permanently removed from both Aincrad and the real world.]
And then he dropped a bombshell.
He was saying people had already died. And since he wasn't the kind of man who would lie about something like that, this was basically a formal notification.
Should I call this insanity? Or should I be impressed that he could say it so openly? I honestly couldn't decide...
My muttering was swallowed up by the chaos of the crowd, and without caring in the slightest, Akihiko Kayaba continued speaking in the mechanical tone of a system announcement.
[There is no need for you to worry about the bodies you left behind. At present, every television station, radio broadcast, and internet news outlet is repeatedly reporting this situation, including the large number of casualties. It is already safe to say that the risk of your NerveGear being forcibly removed is low.]
[From this point on, your real bodies will be transported—still wearing the NerveGear—to hospitals or other facilities within the two-hour network disconnection limit I have set, where they will be placed under strict supervision.]
[So I ask you to set your minds at ease... and devote yourselves to clearing the game.]
Thorough. More than that, it meant the government had probably already started taking custody of the players on a national level.
Luckily, I didn't live in some terrible apartment, so I probably wasn't in immediate danger of dying, and now my safety had increased even more. Of course, that didn't change the fact that this whole situation was still complete garbage.
[However, I would like you to understand this clearly. For you, [Sword Art Online] is no longer an ordinary game. It is another reality.]
[...From this moment on, every means of revival within the game will cease to function. The instant your HP reaches 0, your avatar will be permanently deleted, and at the same time—]
[—your brains will be destroyed by the NerveGear.]
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