Sword Art Online Material Edition 01

The Progressers (攻略者たち) is the first Material Edition of «Sword Art Online». Kawahara Reki published it under his pen name Kunori Fumio.

It was published in November 2007.

Summary
After a failed attempt by Klein and Kirito to defeat the field boss using food, Asuna and Kirito argue over the way on how to defeat the 56th Floor Boss. Asuna proposes using a massacre of NPCs in the village to defeat the boss and Kirito disagrees with her, saying that the NPCs are human too. Asuna states that she's on a level higher than Klein, but he tells her that Kirito is even higher, so they end up dueling each other, with Kirito emerging as the winner using an outside system skill as a feint to win. Asuna mulls over her defeat outside at midnight and she unknowingly triggers a flag that gives her a clue on how to defeat the floor boss.

Later Asuna realizes that even though they are in a VRMMO, she realizes that Kirito thinks of SAO as reality as well. Asuna watches Kirito celebrating with a small girl NPC over the defeat of the floor boss, but gets an in-game warning for holding the small girl NPC into the air.