To Asuna’s right sat the tamer Silica, who had triangular ears unique to Cait Siths. She was currently staring at her math homework on the holographic monitor and whimpering. Similarly, to her left, the Sylph magic swordswoman Lyfa was scowling at her English essay. Opposite her, the Leprechaun smith Lisbeth sat with her legs crossed and was drinking raspberry liqueur while immersed in a novel sold in-game. In the real world it was only 4pm, but time in Alfheim differs. Outside, the sky was almost completely black save for the light reflecting off the falling snow. It was obvious that it was freezing cold outside even if you couldn’t hear the wind, but the fireplace inside the house crackled. In addition, a warm fragrance was coming from a large pot, where a steaming stew was seething. Like her friends, Asuna had her hands on a virtual keyboard and viewed sites in the browser windows floating around her, successfully completing her report. Even though her mother didn’t approve of her doing things she could do in reality in the VR world, working here was more efficient in the long term. Her eyes and hands wouldn’t tire and a number of informative sites which could not fit into her room’s UXGA display floated in easily viewable places. Asuna once told her mother that and let her try using a FullDive program dedicated to text editing, but she logged off in just a few minutes saying that she was dizzy and ignored it from then on. Indeed there were people who got dizzy in the virtual world, but Asuna who «lived» in the virtual world for 2 years simply couldn’t imagine how that felt. Her fingers moved swiftly without a single error and her essay gradually reached its conclusion—