Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-210.187.232.161-20160104145514/@comment-72.234.238.160-20160104232838

So the immediate question that comes to mind that has a relevance to the *immediate* story and not the filler background behind everything...

Does that mean that there are possibly other AOG members in the NW? We were told 37 of them quit. We were not given hints to the circumstances of them quitting, such as if they suddenly just dissappeared / stopped logging in or if they actually deleted thier characters. The only one that we can be relatively sure wasn't transported unknowingly is maybe Touch since there was that whole snippet with him talking about his ongoing 'RL' issues after he quit. Or was that staged? I kind of doubt it would be staged... that's alot of effort made for no real benefit. Unless all the "World Champion" tournaments were a farce and the supposed Champions were actually the research observers' covers in the game. My apologies... the whole thing is starting to sound rather close to SAO to me, which is rather discouraging IMO. ''I read that as well, as well as Log Horizon, and .hack before that; And I do admit to liking the direction SAO took in the most recent LNs. (The premise and such behind the ongoing story rather than the story itself.) Early SAO seemed a bit lacking to me. The best way I can describe my impression of early SAO vs the latest LNs in literary terms is 'Young Adult Fiction' vs 'Adult Fiction.' Or I just might be biased toward Overlord because I'm a fan of both H.P. Lovecraft and much more cynical Fantasy such as Elric.''

As for Albedo using the term. It's not a coincidence, it was highlighted a bit too clearly for it to be simple coincidence. It was probably made in the same mindset and was the best terminology that came to mind for her. It's probably straight foreshadowing or a red herring to throw us off the real story thread.