Sword Art Online Progressive Volume 01

Sword Art Online Progressive Volume 1 is the start of the reboot of Sword Art Online, a light novel series by Kawahara Reki. It was released on October 10, 2012.

Background
The volume contains Kirito's adventures at the first and second floors of Aincrad, including a rewrite of two side stories.

Aria in the Starless Night (Aincrad 1st floor, December 2022)
It has been a month since Kayaba's tutorial, Kirito is in a dungeon and found himself watching a person fighting a Ruin Kobold Trooper. Kirito decides to appoarch the player and tries to give some advice on how to fight more efficienctly, soon realizing that the player was female. The rapier user decided to end the conversation with Kirito as the monsters were going to re-spawn soon and begins to walk away before fainting. Kirito quickly transport her outside the dungeon. After the player had finally rested on the grassy field, she wakes up and notices Kirito who saved her; she responded to him by stating that saving her was an "Unnecessary Effort". After the rapier user reminisced about how her old ordinary life changed when she borrowed the «Nerve Gear» from her older brother: «Yuuki Koichiro». Kirito notifies the player about the upcoming meeting for the boss raid at the town call «Tolbana». When they reach to the town, they parts ways.

Kirito finds Argo and learns that the buyer had raised his price 29,800 «Colls» for his Anneal Blade however Kirito again refuses the offer. Kirito later met up with Asuna as she was having lunch by the fountains at the town centre. During their brief conversation, Asuna realizes that the meeting was about to start and they both head to the meeting.