This is a tale of the time before “Lightning Flash” and “The Black Swordsman” were known by those names… The day that she happened to don the NerveGear, Asuna Yuuki was a third-year middle school student who’d never even touched an online game before.

On November 6, 2022, the world’s first VRMMORPG, Sword Art Online, is officially launched. But the players, still euphoric over having logged in, suddenly find themselves trapped inside the game when the Game Master deprives them of any way to log out. The Game Master then gives them this warning “This may be a game, but it’s not something you play.” If a player dies in-game, they die in the real world.

Hearing this, all of the players panic, and pandemonium reigns.