Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-90.221.228.185-20150511233505/@comment-3250527-20150605112509

Correction to [31.215.127.2], 16.5--and the SAO series as a whole--is not manga, but rather a Light Novel series, edited from a Web Novel series. On top of that, (from what I hear from the higher-ups), 16.5 was placed in the "fanfiction" portion of Kawahara's WordGear site. Therefore, it wasn't even considered actual plot.

On top of that, the recent couple of Material Editions have been noted as 16.x, each a number higher than 16.5. But, in one (or all?) of these 16.x's have Kawahara stating that these short stories are in no way related to 16.5.