Hosaka Tomo (帆坂朋), more commonly know as Argo, was one of the 10,000 players who were trapped in Sword Art Online and a beta tester who sold information between players. Kirito often looked to her for information. She also served as a middle-man for player dealings. Argo is a nimble-looking player who has brown eyes and curly golden-brown hair. She wears full-body cloth and leather armor, a hooded cloak and also has whiskers on her face, which were originally a mark from a quest, but now a makeup of her choice. Her weapon of choice are claws, which she hangs at her left waist. She also uses Throwing Picks, which she hangs on her right waist. Argo, while normally a very business-focused person, also has a mischievous side and is known to mess with people she is closer to. People often say that due to her broker personality that she would sell her own stats or grandmother for Cor. Nonetheless, Argo has certain principals: she refused to provide anyone with the names of SAO beta testers as it would endanger the players, and she has been known to honor her debts, as was the case with Kirito saving her from the ninja clan. She is so focused on completing her field guides that it sometimes gets her into trouble.
Sword Art Online
In 2022, a virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game (VRMMORPG) called Sword Art Online (SAO) is released. With the NerveGear, a helmet that stimulates the user's five senses via their brain, players can experience and control their in-game characters with their minds. Both the game and the NerveGear was created by Akihiko Kayaba. On November 6, 10,000 players log into the SAO's mainframe cyberspace for the first time, only to discover that they are unable to log out. Kayaba appears and tells the players that they must beat all 100 floors of Aincrad, a steel castle which is the setting of SAO, if they wish to be free. Those who suffer in-game deaths or forcibly remove the NerveGear out-of-game will suffer real-life deaths. The main character, Kirigaya "Kirito" Kazuto, was also one of 1,000 testers in the game's previous closed beta. With the advantage of previous VR gaming experience and a drive to protect other beta testers from discrimination, he isolates himself from the greater group and plays the game alone, bearing the mantle of "beater", a "beta tester" and "cheater". As the players progress through the game Kirito eventually befriends a young girl named Asuna Yuuki, who form a relationship that later turns into in-game marriage. After the duo discover that Akihiko Kayaba was playing the game as the leader of the guild Asuna joined, they confront and destroy him, freeing themselves and the other players from the game.
Sword Art Online: Progressive
Sword Art Online: Progressive is a reboot of the original Sword Art Online light novel series by Reki Kawahara. The alternative series retells the original story of Sword Art Online's Aincrad arc and goes into more depth by following Kazuto Kirigaya and Asuna Yuuki's journey floor-by-floor.
