Ainz and the others remained at the restaurant until a little after nine in the morning, when Asuna finally sent Yuto a message.
The SAO open-beta launch event was about to begin.
She included both the location and the starting time, so there was no mistaking what she meant.
Yuto replied, put his phone away, and turned toward Ainz, Rimuru, and Fafnir.
The moment he relayed Asuna's message, all three reacted with varying degrees of excitement.
Rimuru and Ainz were extremely obvious about it.
Fafnir looked much calmer on the surface, but Yuto still noticed a few small abnormalities in his behavior.
For example, he had started rubbing his nose far more often than usual.
Asuna had arranged a car specifically for them, and it was already waiting at the entrance to Ichinose Street.
Yuto locked up the restaurant and headed out with Tohru, Ainz, Rimuru, and Fafnir.
The car took them directly to an upscale office building, and the moment they got out, they were greeted by SAO banners and promotional displays covering nearly every visible surface.
Even the exterior of the building had been decorated with massive images depicting scenes from the game.
Reporters from various television stations were constantly entering and leaving, all clearly there to cover the open-beta event.
"This is pretty impressive."
Rimuru looked up at the building and sighed in admiration.
He was still wearing the same little-monster costume from the convention last time, but aside from the occasional curious glance, nobody seemed particularly bothered by it.
Most people probably assumed he was simply an extremely dedicated cosplayer.
In this country, that was hardly rare.
Even outside an expensive office building, the strangest reaction he received was mild curiosity or perhaps a trace of distaste.
Ainz was also wearing the same black-armored knight appearance as before, so to ordinary people, the two of them probably looked like members of some elaborate cosplay group.
The only ones dressed relatively normally were Yuto and Fafnir.
Even Tohru was still wearing her maid outfit.
"Let's head inside."
Yuto gestured toward the others and walked toward the entrance.
After showing the invitation Asuna had prepared to the security staff, they followed the signs deeper into the building.
The entire office tower had originally belonged to the Yuuki family, which explained why they had been able to decorate the place so extravagantly for SAO.
The event itself was being held on the seventeenth floor.
When Yuto and the others stepped into the elevator, they immediately drew a fair amount of attention.
Ainz stood more than two meters tall, and his black-armored knight appearance gave him such an overwhelming presence that the people around him instinctively avoided looking directly at him.
Several even shifted aside on their own to give him more room.
That was rather convenient for Yuto and the others.
Once they reached the seventeenth floor, they entered a vast open space with no divided office sections.
The entire floor had been converted into one enormous hall, clearly intended for large events such as press conferences and product launches.
Cameras had already been set up throughout the room, while male and female reporters busied themselves adjusting equipment and making final preparations.
Following the instructions Asuna had sent to Yuto's phone, the group took seats in the front row.
Asuna herself could not come out yet.
The event had not officially started, and the moment she appeared, the media would almost certainly swarm her, so for the time being, she remained backstage and stayed in contact with Yuto through her phone.
As soon as Yuto's group sat down, several reporters tried approaching them for interviews.
That was not particularly surprising.
Anyone seated in the very front row at a launch event like this usually had some kind of value to the media.
Fafnir, however, clearly had no interest in letting humans crowd around him.
He disliked people getting too close in general.
Without saying a word, he cast a simple suggestion over the group.
Every reporter who had been heading toward them abruptly changed direction and wandered away as though approaching Yuto's group had never crossed their minds.
Yuto stared in amazement.
That technique was honestly incredible.
Used in the right situation, something like that would be practically divine.
All those elderly shoppers fighting over discounted groceries would probably kill to learn a trick like this.
...
Gradually, the hall filled.
Yet the central seat in the front section remained empty.
At first, Yuto assumed it had been reserved for Shouzou Yuuki, but then he saw Shouzou take a seat off to one side.
That only made him more confused.
Shortly before the event was scheduled to begin, however, a commotion suddenly erupted near the entrance as countless people stood and turned in the same direction.
Yuto followed their gazes.
Then Kaguya appeared.
Everything immediately made sense.
Asuna had previously mentioned that Kaguya had acquired the Yuuki Group, but Yuto had not expected her to personally attend the SAO launch event.
No wonder so many reporters were here.
And no wonder nobody had dared sit in that central seat.
They had all been waiting for Kaguya.
"Isn't that Kaguya?!"
Rimuru blurted out in surprise.
Ainz, Rimuru, and Fafnir still did not know that the Shinomiya family had acquired the Yuuki Group, so their reaction was understandable.
Yuto merely gave a quiet acknowledgment.
By then, Kaguya had already met his eyes.
Surprise and delight appeared openly across her face, and she made no effort to hide either.
These days, she no longer needed to conceal her true feelings the way she once had.
Her reaction immediately confused everyone in the room.
When Kaguya then walked straight toward Yuto's group, the entire hall became even more shocked.
"Would you mind moving one seat over?"
Kaguya politely addressed the person sitting beside Ainz.
Their original seating order had Fafnir on the outer edge, then Tohru, then Yuto, with Rimuru and Ainz seated to Yuto's right.
"O-Of course! No problem at all!"
The person immediately shifted over.
Everyone else in the row followed, opening up the central seat.
Just as Kaguya was about to sit down, Rimuru suddenly spoke.
"Kaguya, sit here!"
He very considerately moved over with Ainz, leaving the seat directly beside Yuto open.
"Thank you, Rimuru-san."
Kaguya smiled before taking the offered seat.
Yuto looked at her helplessly.
"Are you sure it's okay for you to sit here instead of in the middle?"
"Don't worry. It's fine."
Kaguya smiled lightly.
"All right, then."
Nearby, quite a few reporters clearly wanted to approach her, but the numerous men in black stationed around the area were more than enough to discourage them.
Once the minor commotion caused by Kaguya changing seats finally settled, the event officially began.
Shouzou Yuuki went onstage and delivered a long speech.
Most of it consisted of the usual material—thanking various people, praising everyone's hard work, and talking about how much effort had gone into the project.
It was extremely boring.
Yuto barely listened.
Instead, he spent most of the speech quietly talking with Kaguya.
She told him what had happened with Hayasaka.
The matter had been completely resolved.
Her elder brother, Oko Shinomiya, had "disappeared," while Hayasaka had finally been reunited with her mother.
The reason Hayasaka had not accompanied Kaguya today was simple: Kaguya had deliberately given her the day off so she could spend some long-overdue time with her mother.
Yuto could not help being impressed as he listened.
The speed and efficiency with which Kaguya had handled everything was honestly a little terrifying.
Eventually, Shouzou's speech finally ended.
Applause filled the hall.
Yuto had not listened to a single meaningful sentence, but he clapped along with everyone else anyway.
That was simply how these things worked.
"Next, we'll distribute the open-beta headsets here at the venue and invite all our guests to enter the world of SAO together. We've also prepared a special event inside the game."
Shouzou had clearly put a great deal of effort into today's launch.
Originally, he had not intended to make the event quite this elaborate.
Now that the Yuuki family had become connected to the Shinomiyas, however, he had naturally begun taking the entire occasion much more seriously.
His announcement immediately excited Ainz and the others.
They had come here specifically to play the game, and now they were being invited to enter it directly from the launch event.
Headsets were distributed one by one.
Yuto received one as well.
The open-beta model did not look particularly different from the closed-beta version he had seen before.
Ainz, Rimuru, and Fafnir were already putting theirs on impatiently.
All that remained was to wait until everyone could log in together.
...
Somewhere far away, a man in a white lab coat sat alone in front of a computer monitor.
The room around him was completely empty.
His expression appeared calm, but the excitement in his eyes was almost impossible to suppress.
"I never expected things to reach this point... I originally only intended to trap ordinary players..."
He murmured quietly, his voice carrying both amazement and anticipation.
His name was Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of SAO.
He had built the game with a private purpose in mind, and today's open beta was supposed to be the day that dream finally became reality.
Yet the situation unfolding now was dramatically different from what he had originally planned.
The identities of the players involved had changed.
He had initially intended to wait until more people entered SAO before beginning his plan, but with someone as important as Kaguya Shinomiya present, that no longer seemed necessary.
"If the young lady of the Shinomiya family happened to die inside SAO... this entire country might be thrown into chaos."
A faint smile appeared on Kayaba's face.
His emotions were running unusually high, fueled by the exhilaration of seeing a lifelong dream standing on the verge of becoming reality.
Everything he had imagined was about to begin.
...
"Everyone, let's enter the game together!"
At Shouzou's enthusiastic announcement, everyone in the hall pressed the activation buttons on their headsets.
Ainz and Rimuru even cheered.
Yuto and Kaguya entered the game along with everyone else.
As the people inside the venue gradually sank into the virtual world, Kayaba watched from his monitor with a satisfied smile.
His finger hovered over a single button.
Once he pressed it, everyone who had entered SAO would be trapped exactly as he had planned.
"Let's begin..."
Kayaba murmured softly before lowering his finger.
The moment he pressed the button, however, the screen in front of him erupted into garbled code.
Kayaba's expression changed sharply as a huge red X appeared in the center of the monitor, flashing repeatedly while warning messages flooded across the display.
Warning! Warning! Warning!
"What...?"
Kayaba stared at the screen in disbelief.
Where were these warnings coming from?
Nothing like this should have happened!
All he was supposed to do was activate the program, after which everyone currently logged into SAO would lose the ability to log out.
Instead, the entire screen had turned into incomprehensible nonsense.
Before Kayaba could determine what had gone wrong, the problem suddenly became much worse.
Crackle! Crackle!
Sparks began flying from the computer itself.
His expression changed again.
Kayaba immediately pulled back and tried to move away from the desk, but before he could get far, the monitor exploded with a deafening blast.
BOOM!
The force of the explosion struck him directly and hurled him backward onto the floor.
Kayaba barely registered the pain from his injuries.
His mind was completely consumed by shock and fury as he stared at the ruined equipment, unable to understand how a plan he had designed so carefully could have failed in such an absurd way.
What the hell had just happened?