Volume 16 Read online

  “Hnnn……”

  Klein moaned, as if he had just realized this.

  Yui nodded forcefully, having the exact same idea from the beginning.

  “Agil-san is right. On top of the time difference problem, we have much fewer VRMMO players here in the first place, so recruitment will be slower, which means that we will probably be unable to gather up even ten thousand people. In other words, if we use accounts with the same level as the enemies’, the chances of us matching them is very slim.”

  “But, the god-level account that Asuna is using is already gone, right? There’s no time to train our level from scratch like Kirito… Looks like we can only choose the strongest ones out of the accounts that RATH prepares and do our best…”

  Yui looked towards Lisbeth, who was speaking with a stiff expression on her face.

  “No… There are still more accounts. There are accounts that are stronger than the default accounts the enemy is using in terms of level and equipment.”

  “Eh… Wh-Where?”

  “Everyone has them. The accounts that everyone is logged in with right now.”

  To the gasping four players, Yui began to explain the core details of her mission.

  She knew that she was about to request of them a ludicrous sacrifice — in the fullest sense of the phrase, she needed them to hand over one half of themselves.

  But at the same time, Yui deeply believed that these people would definitely agree.

  “— Account conversion! All of you and many other VRMMO players will need to convert the characters raised in numerous worlds of The Seed, and transfer them into the Underworld!”

  (To be continued)

  Afterword

  Thank you to everyone for reading the sixteenth volume of Sword Art Online, [Alicization Exploding], published a year after the previous one.

  Ever since the battle in the Central Cathedral ended, the story has finally extended from the Human Empire to the entire Underworld… I’m very sorry for making everyone wait for so long. In this volume, Asuna finally descends into the battlefield, and seems like some familiar characters are joining the battle as well, so from now on, I hope I can recover the normal pace until the end of Alicization arc. After being constantly protected since the last volume, Kirito-shi may make a big comeback in the next one. I just can’t help feeling so!

  The subtitle of [Exploding] was added to reference the various explosions and bursts that occurred in this volume. Although the names were kind of short at first, like [Beginning] and [Turning], they’ve been getting longer and longer recently6, so I want to shorten the next volume’s name a bit. Below, I’ll be discussing the plot of this volume for a bit. The first half of this volume is titled [War of the Underworld], and it gives a taste of a war chronicle since various characters are all fighting in a mess. Because of that, I’ve shifted the writing style from a limited third-person perspective to the so-called “omniscient third-person perspective”. Please forgive me if you were confused by the endlessly appearing information that should remain unknown to that part’s central character!

  Although I want to describe the author’s situation, life has been pretty normal like last time, so there aren’t any topics worth mentioning… I haven’t been playing any MMORPG games properly these few years.

  I’d love to start something new yet I haven’t done that since long ago, so I at least tried a western open-world RPG on the PS4, and wow, that was awesome. The map’s too big, there’s too much freedom, so after wandering around for a while I forgot what would happen during the main quests. I’m pretty sure that if I used an HMD7 and motion controllers to play this kind of game, I wouldn’t be able to return to the real world! I’m always dreaming that one day SAO will become like this kind of game, but when I pleaded to producer Futami over at Namco Bandai Entertainment, “Please turn the entire Underworld into something that you can adventure around in!”, I only got a stupefied smile in return.

  Lastly, some routine words of thanks. To abec-san, who gave the Stacia version of heroine Asuna-san the most beautiful and cutest design possible (Sheyta, Renri, and the Goblin Tribal Chiefs are great, too!), and to Miki-san, who as chief editor proofreads for me deep into the night, thank you very much! See you next volume, everyone!

  A certain day in June 2015

  Kawahara Reki

  Credits

  Translation8:

  Tap

  CJ, lucas1998, defan752

  Editing:

  CJ, luacs1998, defan752, ZeHaffen, DarthMewtwo

  Scans:

  仓崎枫子

  Illustrations:

  http://ruranobe.ru

  Mttblue2

  Terminology:

  Tap

  Thanks!

  Compiled:

  Mamue

  Notes

  [←1]

  “k’s”, “s’s”, “t’s”, “n’s”, “r’s”, – These refer to their respective kana. For example, “k’s” refer to the “ka, ki, ku, ke, ko” kana.

  [←2]

  “Kosogi”, “Shibori” – These have verb stems with the definitions of “to scrape” and “to wring” respectively.

  [←3]

  VRMMO game mentioned in Volume 7 Chapter 7

  [←4]

  Roppongi, a district of Tokyo, is famous for its active night club scene.

  [←5]

  Here, Klein speaks in a much less formal, relaxed tone. It is difficult to replicate in English, but here is an attempt.

  [←6]

  Referring to the katakana of the names: Beginning ビギニング, Turning ターニング, Rising ライジング, Dividing ディバイディング, Uniting ユナイティング, Invading インベーディング, Exploding エクスプローディング.

  [←7]

  Head-mounted display, used for virtual reality.

  [←8]

  Chapter 18 from http://www.taptaptaptaptap.net/ on 13th of December2015

  Chapter 19 from https://defan752.wordpress.com on 10th of March 2016