After all, this old man was no devil...

Hah!

As though someone had hauled him out of the water, Wang Shui gulped down air.

When he first entered his initial awakening mission, he had been taking a truck-kun iai strike head-on, so he had not felt it this keenly.

The system's teleportation really was... hard to describe.

His body felt as though it had plunged into deep water, the pressure and suffocation stretching a single instant into eternity. By the time he could breathe again, the teleportation was over.

Wang Shui got up from the single bed and looked around the room.

It was a tiny, standard apartment. The room, a little over ten square meters, held a single bed, a low table on a rug, a small wardrobe, and a desk with a computer. The furniture packed it full.

There was a separate little bathroom, and the balcony at the far end had been converted into a simple kitchen, though there were no signs of cooking.

The floor was clean, with a thin rug taking up a third of the space, and the walls had neat, light-blue wallpaper.

Wait... was this really an apartment a single boy would have?! The orphan certificate was terrifying indeed!

[Connecting to the Dream System. All awakened have taken their positions.]

[Fantasy world aberrant instance loaded. Automatic world extrapolation in progress...]

[Synchronizing languages. Awakened temporarily gain local language proficiency, which expires upon leaving the instance.]

[Main quest loaded...]

The system notifications lagged half a beat behind Wang Shui waking up, but that was not the important part. He hurried to check the main quest.

[Main quest: The World Seed]

[Description: Obtain The World Seed.]

[Reward: Dynamic Weighting]

[Penalty: Erasure]

That... that was it?!

Although half a year had passed, Wang Shui still clearly remembered that the main quest in his awakening world had several pages of text, clearly explaining the characteristics of the four factions fighting it out.

Now all I get is those six Chinese characters? Aren't you overestimating me a little?!

And what the hell is erasure? Wasn't the penalty supposed to be light?! Do you think you're Reincarnation XX Paradise?!

Wait a second. This World Seed thing-could it mean the virtual-world source code Akihiko Kayaba gave Kirito?

Wang Shui was no veteran anime otaku, and his memories of Sword Art Online's plot were over a decade old. As he recalled, Kirito had made the source code public, leading to the creation of large numbers of virtual worlds afterward.

Going by the plot, that would be three or four years from now?

Tch, and here I thought it was something serious. I've read too many infinite-flow stories with lunatics who erase people at the drop of a hat. I keep scaring myself.

So all I have to do is turtle up for three or four years. Where was this again? Tokyo Metropolis?

Hah, a fine young man with working arms and legs and no parents-I could survive four years even by begging!

Thinking of it that way, Wang Shui relaxed a little. He would leave the quest to Lord Kirito. That was what protagonists were for!

Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, Wang Shui seemed to remember something and rushed straight to the bathroom.

Then:

"So this is the anime world."

His body was still the one the system had reconstructed for Wang Shui, and his appearance was still the ordinary self he had looked at for over twenty years.

His features were fine, as regular as ever, but their lines were softer. Wang Shui felt the system had messed with him.

Only his eyes remained the same lifeless, vicious dead-fish eyes, looking rather unfriendly. Now that he thought about it, he had not worn nonprescription glasses in over half a year.

This anime world did not have an animated art style. Instead, it was much like reality, only with a soft filter laid over it.

Before starting the mission, Wang Shui had felt more nervous about the new world than excited about an anime world.

He was no better than someone who loved dragons in theory but feared the real thing.

After sitting quietly for a while, Wang Shui started searching the room again. Even if he was going to turtle up for three or four years, he needed a handle on his resources.

After a search, the most conspicuous find was a schoolbag containing second-year middle-school materials.

Inside the schoolbag was a name tag bearing its owner's name: [Satō Itsuki].

What a lousy name. So this is me.

Next were the [Real Estate Registration Rights Information], a [Basic Resident Register] card, a [Seal Registration Certificate], and two seals, all stored with a bankbook in a drawer.

Wait, even the paperwork is this complete?

Even the apartment was registered directly under his name. This orphan certificate really was powerful.

There are a hundred thousand yen in the bankbook. A hundred thousand! That much?! Doesn't that mean I can turtle up without a care?

Wait, yen?

Wang Shui hurriedly turned on the computer beside him and opened Google to search:

[How long can you live in Tokyo on a hundred thousand yen?]

There were plenty of answers-or rather, plenty of people asking the question-but the more Wang Shui read, the colder he felt.

Some answers said twenty days, some fifteen, and some seven or eight, but not one measured it in months.

Sitting in front of the computer, Wang Shui rubbed his face in distress.

No way. I've awakened. I've become superhuman. Don't tell me I still have to work to survive in some native anime world.

I'd be disgracing the infinite zone!

Should I rob a bank? I can't fly through the sky or burrow underground. Wouldn't I get shot dead?

No, I can't be this dejected. I'm an awakened of the Dream System, charged with exploring unknown worlds!

The boss hasn't started living the high life yet. How can a worker say it can't be done?!

He opened Google again and searched:

[Can middle schoolers work part-time?]

The results were complicated. Some said not below fifteen, others said sixteen, and they listed a host of troublesome approval procedures.

Wang Shui pulled out his student ID. Okay, fourteen. Perfect!

While agonizing over it, Wang Shui caught sight of the time in the bottom-right corner: Tuesday, November 1, 2022, eight in the morning. Still quite early.

Wang Shui did not remember when SAO had launched, but it probably had not happened yet. Otherwise, there would not have been much point in sending him here.

What should I do...?

With absolutely no experience as an awakened, Wang Shui had done his best to prepare for entering this world, only for its peaceful pace to leave him utterly bewildered.

How do I even start, guys? My seniors in the infinite worlds, could you spare me a little of your initiative and ability to get involved in the plot?!

Failing that, spare me some work experience!

Seriously, even if you sent a few medium-sized mobile armors chasing after me right off the bat, I'd know to join a faction and turtle up there.

After agonizing for ages without any ideas, Wang Shui simply took out his phone-time for school.

Only after going downstairs did Wang Shui discover that his shabby little apartment stood in a corner of a shopping street. Shopping seemed convenient.

His phone's map showed that the school was not far away, just an ordinary public middle school.

It was a little after eight, and the streets were crowded. Although he did not know when classes started here, surely it could not be later than work. Already in his uniform with his schoolbag on his back, Wang Shui hurried toward school.

An unfamiliar school gate, an unfamiliar campus layout, an unfamiliar classroom, and even unfamiliar writing, despite knowing its meaning and grammar.

Still, the feeling of middle school was familiar.

After starting work, Wang Shui had fantasized about returning to university through some mysterious reversal of time, then greedily wished to go back to high school, and finally to the sanctuary in his memories, his utterly relaxed middle-school days.

Now, in an unfamiliar time and space, in an unfamiliar world, his dream had come true.

"Hey, Satou, what are you spacing out in the doorway for? Class is about to start!"

An unfamiliar boy greeted him. It seemed the orphan certificate had issued him friends too, or rather, reasonably decent relationships with his classmates.

Silly kid, do you think I'm spacing out? I don't know where I sit...

Fortunately, everyone was here today, leaving only his seat empty.

The classroom had five columns of desks, seven people in each, and Wang Shui's seat was in the middle column, fourth from either end.

Great. The dead center of the class. Not a window seat in the back, not a top student's seat up front, and not the teacher's blind-and-deaf zone in the last row.

Fine, fine, fine. I established long ago that I'm not the protagonist. You don't have to keep reminding me!

As Wang Shui copied the student beside him, hanging his bag at the side and organizing his desk, the homeroom teacher came in for a brief class meeting. It mostly consisted of telling the class officers to stay after school that afternoon, followed by a few words of encouragement before leaving.

Classes officially started at eight forty-five. What an odd time.

The math teacher was a plump, kindly middle-aged man, severely balding, with a soft, lingering voice.

Wang Shui did his best to restrain his excitement at returning to middle school, listening attentively while praising it endlessly in his mind.

Yes, yes, yes! That's the feeling. Ah, this familiar drowsiness. It really has nothing to do with whether you understand the lesson.

November was not cold, but the classroom was particularly warm and cozy. The students with the least resistance to sleep had already started nodding off.

Wang Shui was sleepy too, but could not bear to sleep through it.

"So we need to use the formula we just learned here. Would anyone..."

The teacher had intended to ask for volunteers, but saw that most of the children were battling the sandman. Their adorable appearance left him both annoyed and amused.

This middle school did not seem particularly strict.

The girl to Wang Shui's left had been listening attentively the whole time. Without deliberately turning to look, he could not see her appearance or expression, but judging from the tiny movements of her forearm and body, she wanted to answer.

The teacher caught that tiny movement. The gentle, plump middle-aged man's gaze locked onto her, his lips shifted slightly, his eyes narrowed, and his face stiffened for a moment before he rather awkwardly looked away.

He was afraid. Afraid of a student?

Wang Shui keenly noticed something. The girl beside him seemed to notice the teacher's momentary unnaturalness too, immediately lowering her head as the air around her grew gloomy.

Could it be?

Wang Shui raised his hand, and the plump teacher seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as he called him up to solve the problem.

[117*117-119*115]

An extremely simple variation on the difference-of-squares formula, subtracting a squared.

Although he had not used the formula in a long time, the corresponding solution still surfaced in Wang Xiu's twenty-something mind.

Come to think of it, my middle-school math teacher was called Old Tian, wasn't he? Dressed simply, made his lessons interesting. A good teacher full of energy.

The moment Wang Shui's mind wandered, the biological brain of the [Computing Terminal] plastered the answer, 4, in his face.

Honestly. There goes the whole mood.

As Wang Shui split 119 and 115 into 117+2 and 117-2, the plump teacher beside him broke into a broad smile.

Amid the teacher's praise, Wang Shui walked back to his seat, just as the girl beside it looked up.

Short dark-brown hair and eyes of the same color, a rounded face but a somewhat thin build, with a small, delicate mouth and nose.

Shino Asada.

Her very plastic-looking glasses could not hide her calm yet sensitive gaze, which seemed capable of speaking.

"You know me." That was what her eyes seemed to say.

No kidding. According to our backstory, we've been classmates for two years, and I sit right next to you.

Wang Shui answered with a gentle smile, or at least tried his best to.

The following lessons were no longer so appealing to Wang Shui. His attention had shifted entirely to Shino.

So this is my entry point into the plot?

Do the other awakened also get chances to approach plot characters?

Will anyone spawn beside Lord Kirito?

Despite his bellyful of questions, Wang Shui maintained an ordinary expression and slipped smoothly into the circle of boys in his class.

Especially at lunchtime, when most of the boys and a few girls gathered together, it was practically an extremely high-throughput intelligence hub.

SAO beta information, whose grades had slipped because of gaming, who liked whom, NerveGear selling like hotcakes, and so on.

At three thirty, after copying down tomorrow's timetable and listening to a brief class meeting's nagging, the second-year middle schoolers, cooped up all day, scattered like a flock of birds released from a cage.

Only those attending club activities took their time packing their bags.

Shino Asada beside him was packing slowly too, but she definitely had not joined any clubs.

Ah, Little Shino. Wang Shui sighed.

He vaguely remembered some of the plot. Shino had been around her first year of high school when she appeared, and her school life had been utterly dull, the sort spent counting off the days.

Apart from the trio of girls bullying her, she had a psychologically twisted friend who nearly became her boyfriend.

In short, it was hard to describe.

But from the looks of it, Little Shino had already begun that countdown existence in middle school.

People who were strong-willed but poor at socializing were particularly easy to hurt.

Wang Shui did not seize the chance to strike up a conversation and befriend Shino. This was the conclusion of a day's thought.

First, Shino was not a character in the SAO arc. She would not help much with the first volume's plot, and she was not so easy to approach.

Second, it was already November, and SAO officially launched on the sixth. Though Wang Shui had not decided whether to enter the game, he still wanted to snap up a NerveGear.

Today, he was pressed for time.

Besides, his first thought on discovering Shino had merely been to scare her with a gun. Then he had felt that was too despicable and given up-for now.

Hmph. Just one of the more fleshed-out supporting characters. She's not even that pretty.

Quickly packing his things, Wang Shui went to change his shoes and headed straight for the shopping street near his apartment. Sure enough, he found a game center midway along it.

The good news was that although plenty of people were buying, the several rows of boxes behind the counter suggested there were plenty of units too.

The SAO game discs were already on sale as well, available for purchase alongside NerveGear.

The price was... 66,800???!!!

Wang Shui rubbed his eyes and looked carefully. What the fuck? Why is it so expensive?!

Hurriedly opening his phone, Wang Shui searched for desktop PC prices.

Oh. Sorry, I misjudged you.

Looking at the mid-to-high-end machines costing two or three hundred thousand yen, Wang Shui suddenly felt NerveGear was excessively cheap.

Wait! A thought suddenly struck Wang Shui. If I enter SAO on the sixth, won't I stop needing to spend money in reality?

The game publisher should pay for hospitalization and life support, and wouldn't there be some compensation when I get out of the game over two years later?

In that case, a hundred thousand would be just enough...

Was this part of your plan too, orphan certificate?!

Feeling deeply controlled by the orphan certificate yet having nowhere to vent, Wang Shui carried the equipment box home, somewhat dejected.

Yes, he had bought it after all. Whether he played or not, he had to buy it.

The stairwell of the small apartment building was only seven or eight steps from his front door, and along that short stretch stood Shino, fumbling anxiously for her keys.

So Nihon was this small.

The semi-open corridor was narrow, and the November night wind was a little dry and chilly. Wang Shui just stood there grinning mischievously, watching Shino rummage through her pockets faster and faster as her face grew redder and redder.

The story ended with the dull thud of a closing door. In the end, neither of them said a word.

Wang Shui returned to his own room as well. The temperature outside was not low, but it felt a little cold. Once indoors, he naturally felt much better.

Ha, that girl and all her little thoughts.

Wang Shui was still smiling. He could more or less understand the embarrassment of having caused someone trouble.

Little Shino had no idea, either, that she owed her escape to a certain guy with an awful personality being preoccupied with SAO.

It was not particularly late yet, and Wang Shui had already begun his preparations-specifically, compiling a game guide based on beta test information online.

He also looked up information on Akihiko Kayaba along the way, but there was surprisingly little.

This physicist and top-tier game developer, who had created FullDive technology for virtual worlds, had not only given few interviews; information on him of any kind was scarce.

Wang Shui downloaded all of Kayaba's published papers, especially those concerning FullDive.

Another surprise: it was surprisingly simple.

Using microwaves as the medium of interaction, NerveGear intercepted, processed, and fed back signals from the brain to simulate a virtual world with extremely high sensory fidelity.

Honestly, it was rather slapdash.

The human body was not as simple as the brain handling higher-level reflexes and the spinal cord handling lower-level reflexes. Their relationship was not one of each doing its own separate job.

Especially with movement-related reflexes, without signals from the spinal cord and coordination from the brain, players in the game should have been completely incapable of extremely fast motor responses.

If signals were simply intercepted and the body received none at all, the resulting chaotic neural activity might cause death.

The design principles of NerveGear, its battery structure, and the technological level of its information-processing hardware also had something of an "I reckon this'll work" flavor.

This... The author of Sword Art Online had imagined the future from within the constraints of a particular time and place. What now lay before Wang Shui was a real world.

Even if it was a dungeon world, it felt completely real to Wang Shui. He could get hungry, feel pain, and die.

Reading papers alone certainly would not be enough. Wang Shui took out NerveGear and the electronics disassembly kit he had bought on the way.