Front Runners

The chapter began with Diavel's introduction, which was shown from Asuna's perspective in the previous chapter. After thanking the players for coming to the meeting, he announced that his party had found the 1st Floor's boss room and that the time to open the doors to the 2nd Floor, thus spreading the message that the death game would one day end, had come.

However, Diavel's speech was interrupted by another player, named Kibaou, who ordered the beta testers to reveal themselves, blaming them for hogging all the resources and knowledge for themselves, which led to the death of nearly 2,000 players, and also ordered them to give up their items and money. At that point, another player, named Agil, spoke up and told everyone that everyone must have benefited from the guidebook that was available in the item shops of every city for free, hearing which Kirito remarked that he had to pay 500 Cor for his copy. Agil then said that the information contained in the guide is so advanced in such a short period of time, that the guide must have been written based on the knowledge that the beta testers had. Finally, Agil finished his speech by saying that the guide was the best gift that the beginners could get and that the reason so many people had died was because they treated SAO as just another MMO and thus did not retreat on time, while those who read the guide were still alive. At this point, Diavel put an end to the argument by stating that it was time to look forward and that if the beta players contributed to beating the boss, it was worth having faith in them.

As Diavel was about to get back to the main topic, another player announced that he had found a boss edition version of Argo's guide from a store. After analysing the information contained in the guide, Diavel concluded that the boss was not really dangerous, while Kibaou drew their attention to the note on the back of the guide that revealed that the guide was based on the information on the boss from the beta, while the current version might be different. After Kibaou finished saying that the information might not be reliable due to it coming from the beta players and that Argo should be the one to prove it first, everyone noticed that Argo had already left the meeting. Asuna then stepped up and told everyone that all they could do was to appreciate the information, causing everyone to be surprised that there was a girl in the meeting.

At that point, Diavel exclaimed that Asuna was right and that the beta testers were not their enemy, as their real enemy was the boss of the floor and thus they should appreciate the information they got. Agil then remarked that this information would likely save them the most dangerous task of scouting raids, though he also remarked that the actual boss raid will likely take sacrifices. Diavel denied this by saying that there would be zero deaths, since if the information had flaws, he would wager his knight's honour to protect everyone. With that, Diavel told everyone to party up to form a raid party. While Asuna was dosing off, everyone aside from Kirito had already formed parties, thus Kirito offered Asuna to party with him, as neither of them could join the raid if they did not have a party. With a cold attitude, Asuna told him that he could do what he wanted: if he invited her, she would have to accept the invitation. After Asuna accepted the invitation and Kirito saw her name pop up in his visual interface, Asuna asked him what he had tried to tell her earlier, as she could not hear it clearly over the sound wind, and Kirito replied that he would tell her if both of them lived through the boss battle. After checking up on all the other members of the raid party, Diavel came up to Kirito and Asuna and, noticing that they were a 2-player party, asked them to support the group fighting the kobold minions. After Kirito accepted the task, Diavel remarked that handling the kobolds, as well as guarding the princess was an important role and that he was jealous of him getting the latter task.

With this, the meeting soon came to an end and Diavel announced that the raid would begin two days later, with everyone meeting at the same spot at 8 AM, thus everyone had a day to either rest, practice, or to just get along. Seeing that Asuna was leaving the scene, Kirito asked her if she was not going to participate in the practice and Asuna remarked that she did not think that fighting the minions was an important role and thus believed that she was not considered as part of the fighting force. Kirito tried to explain the situation while using game terms that Asuna had never heard, thus when she showed a dumbfounded expression at his explanation, Kirito offered to take up a quest in the morning for practice, while he would explain the theory that evening. Therefore, Kirito first offered to go to a bar for their conversation, but, as Asuna rejected the idea since she did not want to be seen in public with him. Kirito was then thinking of offering to go to an NPC's house, but remembered that anyone could enter it, thus he then offered to go to an inn room, which could be locked to prevent being heard from outside, but Asuna rejected the idea too. Kirito then started talking about his own accommodation, mentioning a bath among its benefits, which prompted Asuna to rush to him to confirm whether he had said the word "bath".

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