S.A.O Project Alicization - OC/Male Reader Insert

Project Alicization ----- Chapter Eighteen

March 378 HE, Underworld Human Realm
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There had to be some way. It was often said that a nearly perfect VR world was indistinguishable from reality, but I didn't believe it was possible for absolutely every aspect of the real world to be represented in perfect accuracy.

For nearly five minutes, I sat among the short grass, pondering the possibilities. But ultimately, I did not come up with a simple idea that I could test on the spot. If I had a microscope, I could examine the soil for bacteria. If I had a plane, I could try flying to the ends of the earth. But with only my own two hands and feet, the best I could do at the moment was dig in the dirt.

Loneliness set in again, and I bit my lip.

"Oh..."

I leaped to my feet. The sound of the clearing grew faint.

What in the world? I have to be crazy not to have thought of that until just now.

Of course I knew. I was quite familiar with the technology to create a VR world that far surpassed what was available today, a type of "super-reality." Which meant this world had to be...

"Inside the Soul Translator...? Is this the Underworld?"

No one responded, of course, but I barely registered the lack of an answer as I stared around, dumbfounded.

Knotted, ancient trees, indistinguishable from the real thing. Waving grasses. Fluttering butterflies.

"So this...is the artificial dream it wrote into my fluctlight..."

On the very first day of my stint with Kirito and Rath, we got an explanation (more like bragging) about the rough working of the STL and the realness of its world from research/operator Takeru Higa.

On my first test dive, I realized that his words were not hyperbole in the least-and all I saw was a single room. While the desk, chair, and various items were all indistinguishable from reality, the space itself was much too small to be considered a "world."

But the size of the forest around me now had to be miles wide in terms of real-world scale. In fact, if the faint outline of mountains in the far distance were real, then it was tens, hundreds of miles in scope.

You'd have to scour together all the data space in the entire Internet to create and run such an environment using existing technology. It would have to be an entirely new form of tech...something possible only through the STL's pneumonic visuals system-but even I'd never imagined that it would be like this.

And if my supposition that this was the Underworld, the STL's virtual realm, was correct, then it would be essentially impossible to confirm that through any kind of user action from within.

After all, every object I could see was no different from the real thing, as far as my consciousness perceived it. If I pulled out every blade of grass, my fluctlight would receive the exact same information as if I did that action in real life. Discerning the difference from real life was fundamentally impossible.

If the STL was ever going to be put to a functional use, it would definitely need some kind of notable marker that identified its VR world as such, I noted to myself as I got up to my feet.