It’s true that where we are at now, the central plaza of the main street area of the 59th floor was still within the «area». More accurately, it should be said to be the «Anti-Criminal Code Effective Area». Inside this area, players are definitely unable to hurt other players. Even if they used weapons to hack at each other, there would only be a purple system effect, and the other player’s HP bar wouldn’t drop by even one millimeter, with the various poison-causing items having no effect as well. Of course, theft of items and such is also impossible. In other words, the area was just like what the term “Anti- Criminal” meant; with no way to carry out criminal acts directly. This is an absolute rule in this death game called «SAO», on the same level with the rule that «Once the HP becomes zero, it means death». But unfortunately, there were still some loopholes around this rule. One of them is when the player’s sleeping. There are times when players, with their energy exhausted through long durations of battle, are basically unconscious when they go into a deep sleep, and unable to wake up even with some stimulations. With that opportunity, one could raise a request to duel in «Complete Decisive Mode» and moved the sleeping opponent’s finger to press on the OK button. All that was left was to literally make the opponent sleep like the dead. Another method, that’s even more daring, was to drag the opponent’s body out of the area. The player lying on the ground couldn’t be forcefully moved through the protection of the «Code», but they can be moved about freely if placed on the «Stretcher» item.