Libro Sword Art Online

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English Translator:
Sharramon

Sword Art Online
ソードアート・
ソードアート
ソードアート・オンライン
Volume 1 — Aincrad

Author:Reki Kawahara
Illustrator: Abec

Volume 1 — Aincrad

Sword Art Online


A huge castle made of stone and steel floating in an endless sky.
That was all this world was.
It took a vagary group of craftsmen one month to survey the
place, the diameter of the base floor was about 10 kilometers—large
enough to fit the entirety of Setagaya-ku within. Above there were
100 floors stackingstraight upwards; its sheer size was unbelievable.
It was impossible to even guess how much data it consisted of.
Inside there were a couple of large cities along with countless
small scale towns and villages, forests and plains, and even lakes.
Only one stairway linked each floor to another, and they existed in
dungeons where large numbers of monsters roamed; so discovering
and getting throughwas no easy matter. However, once someone
made a breakthrough and arrived at a city of the upper floor, the
there and of every cities in the lower floors would
be connected making it possible for anyone to move freely through
these levels.
With these conditions, the huge castle had been steadily
conquered for two years. The current front line is the 74th floor.
The name of the castle was ,a world of battles with
swords that continued floating and had engulfed approximately 6
thousand people. Otherwise known as...

10

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Volume 1 — Aincrad

Sword Art Online

Even if everything that I am seeing right now is a 3D virtual
reality, and the bar that was reduced was nothing more than a bunch
of numbers that showed my hit points, the fact that I was fighting for
my lifedidn’t change.

Chapter 1

A grey sword cut my shoulder.
The thin line at the top left corner of my field of vision reduced
slightly. At the same time a cold hand passed over my heart.
The blue line—called the “HP bar”—is a visual rendering of my
life force. There was still a little over 80 percent left. No, this phrase
isn’t appropriate enough. Right now I was about 20 percent closer todeath.
I dashed backwards before the enemy’s sword even began its
attacking motion.
“Haaa…”
I forced a huge breath and steadied my breath. The in this
world didn’t need oxygen; but the body on the other side, or the body
lying down in my real world, would be breathing heavily. My limp
hands would be soaked with sweat and my heartbeat would be off the
charts.
Of course.

12

When youthink about it like that, this fight is extremely unfair.
That’s because the in front of me—a humanoid with dully
shining arms covered in dark green scales, and a lizard’s head and
tail—was not a human, nor was it really alive. It was a digital lump
that the system respawned however many times it was killed.
—No.
The AI that moved the lizardman was studying my movements
and enhancing itsability to respond to them with every second that
passed. However, the moment that this unit was destroyed, the data
was reset and it did not pass on to the unit that would be regenerated
in this area.
So in a sense this lizardman was also alive. As a single unique
being in this world.
“…right?”
There was no way that it would have understood the word that I
had muttered to myself, but thelizardman—a level 82 monster called
—hissed and smiled, showing the sharp fangs that
sprung from its long jaw.
It’s reality. Everything in this world is real. There’s no virtual
reality or any fakes of any kind.
I shifted the one-handed longsword in my right hand parallel to
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Volume 1 — Aincrad

Sword Art Online
the middle of my body and watched the enemy.

that would have...