Episode 7

“other game” he’d played.

“Sure thing. If you ever have any questions, just ask.”

“Yeah. Will do.”

We released the handshake.

This was the instant that Aincrad, the world of Sword Art Online, stopped simply being a fun game, a pleasant diversion.

Klein took one step backward, held out the index and middle fingers on his right hand, and swung them downward—the action that called up the game’s main menu screen. With a sound like bells jingling, a translucent purple rectangle materialized in midair.

I took a few steps backward myself, sitting down on a nearby rock to open my own window. My fingers traced the display as I sorted the items I’d earned from fighting boars.

The next instant—

“Huh?” Klein muttered, perplexed. “What the heck? There’s no log-out button.”

At those last words, I stopped moving my hand and looked up.

“No button? That can’t be true. Look closer,” I said, exasperated. The tall scimitar-wielding hero leaned over, his eyes wide beneath the ugly bandanna as he stared at the window.

In its default state, the elongated horizontal window featured several menu tabs on the left and a human silhouette on the right detailing the user’s inventory and equipment. At the very bottom of that menu was a LOG OUT button that enabled the player to leave the world—or at least, there should have been.

As I returned my gaze to the list of items I’d earned over the last few hours of battle, Klein repeated himself, louder this time.

“No. It’s just gone. You should see for yourself, Kirito.”

“I’m telling you, it has to be there…” I sighed, then tapped the button in the upper left of the screen that led back to the main menu.

My item storage display closed smoothly, returning the window to its default state. The silhouette reappeared, several equipment slots still empty, and the list of menu tabs materialized again on the left.

With a familiar motion, I slid my finger down to the bottom button…

And all of my muscles froze solid.

It was gone.

During the beta test—in fact, just after logging in at one o’clock today—the log-out button was right in the corner, but as Klein noted, it had simply disappeared.

I stared at the blank space for several seconds, then moved my eyes upward, carefully scanning the menu tabs to ensure that it hadn’t simply changed positions when I wasn’t paying attention. Klein tilted his head at me as though to say, See?

“…Gone, right?” “Yep. Gone,” I reluctantly agreed.

He raised his cheeks in a grimace and stroked his shapely chin.

“Well, it is launch day. Bugs happen. I bet tech support is getting drowned in calls. They’re probably tearing their hair out right now,” he said nonchalantly, to which I gave a barbed retort.

“Is that all you have to say about it? Weren’t you just talking about getting a pizza delivery at five thirty?”

“Oh crap, that’s right!”

I grinned despite myself at the sight of him bolting upright, wide-eyed with alarm.

The red glow of my inventory screen subsided as I discarded enough junk items to squeeze back under the weight limit. Standing up, I walked over to Klein, who wailed on about lost anchovy pizzas and ginger ale.

“Look, you should try opening a support ticket with the GMs. They might be able to boot you off from the system side,” I suggested.

“I tried that, but there was no response. Man, it’s already five twenty-five! Kirito, was there any other way to log out of the game?” he pleaded pathetically, his hands outstretched.

My lazy grin stiffened. A vague sense of anxiety began to chill my spine.

“Let’s see…Logging out, logging out…,” I muttered.

To leave the game and return to my ro

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