lambentlight | CANON QUOTES ;;

ARIA OF THE STARLESS NIGHT

"...If you fight like that, you will die."

The rapier user stopped, leaned her shoulder on the right wall and turned around slowly. From deep within the hood, her hazel-looking eyes shot at me with a thin red background.

"...Everyone will die in the end anyway."

The hoarse, cracked sound made the cool dungeon air colder.

"In just one month, 2000 people died. But still, not even the first floor has been been cleared. It is not possible to clear this game. Where and how you die, early... or late, is the only difference..."

. . .

...for Asuna who was a 3rd year middle school student, the only experience of a game she played was free games on her cell phone once in a while. She knew about the existence of net games, but with high school entrance exams closing, there was no interest or motivation to play these games—or there was supposed to be none.

. . .

In the beginning Asuna locked herself in an inn room in the Starting City to wait for the incident to end, but after two weeks with no message from the real world, she gave up hope on being saved from outside. Also at the same time, over one thousand players had died, and she found out that even the first maze had not been broken through, she realized that waiting inside for game clear is useless.

The only remaining choice, was «What kind of death» only.

Just staying in the only safe city for months, no, years like this could be a way. However, no one can be sure that the rule of «Monsters cannot enter cities» will continue forever.

Instead of huddling in a small dark room fearing for the future, it's better to go outside. Use all her ability to learn, train, and fight. If she ended up dying after using all her strength, at least she would be without trouble for the past and regrets of a lost future.

Run. Charge forward. Then disappear. like a meteor burning up upon entering the atmosphere.

Holding onto that one thought, Asuna left the inn, and stepped out into the wilderness of the MMORPG world that she doesn't know a single common phrase of. She chose her own weapon, and relied on just one skill she learned, reaching the bottom of the maze that no one had been to before.

. . .

"...It's okay. I did not come this far to this town just to eat delicious things."

"Hum. Then, for what purpose?"

The swordsman's sound, could not be said to be a beautiful voice, but there is not a single part of it that was unpleasing to the ear: it echoed like the voice of a youth. Maybe because of that, the emotions hidden deep in her heart—the one she never told anyone after coming to this world—slipped out without her consciously noticing it.

"I... want to prove that I exist. At first, I locked myself in a room of the city inn. But I decided, if I was going to slowly rot away, then I wanted to be myself up to the last moment. Even if I lose to a monster and die, this game... this world, I do not want to lose too. No matter what."

Asuna - Yuuki Asuna's 15 years of life, were a continuous battle. It began with the kindergarten entrance exam, then with many small and big tests after; Asuna overcame them all. It was set so that even one failure would make her a worthless person, so she continued to repel that weight.

A new challenge came upon her after 15 years of fighting: «Sword Art Online». However, she probably could not win against this test. Fighting against the unknown, with different rules and cultures, this was a type of battle a single person's strength could not do anything about.