Renya Nakamura

**Renya Nakamura** (中村廉也, *Nakamura Renya*?) and known as **Ren** (レン, *Ren*?) in «Sword Art Online» (SAO), «ALfheim Online» (ALO), «Gun Gale Online» (GGO), and «Project Alicization», is one the protagonist of the main Sword Art Online series.

Ren was chosen to be one of the ten thousand beta testers for the closed beta of Sword Art Online, the first-ever Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG) for the NerveGear, and later joined the official version of the game. He thus became one of the 50,000 players who were trapped in Sword Art Online, where he remained a solo player for the majority of the game, willingly taking on the role of a Beater to reduce discrimination against other former beta testers, as well as actively taking part in Boss battles as one of the Clearers.

After Sword Art Online Ren began playing ALfheim Online helped Kirito to rescue Asuna as a Salamander due to after seeing an in-game screenshot of what resembled Asuna, and thus help him to investigate the matter. After they freed the three thousand remaining captives, Renya continued playing ALfheim Online with Kirito and Shuto, under new management, with their old friends from Sword Art Online, as well as new friends from ALfheim Online.

## Appearance

### Real World / Sword Art Online / Project Alicization Avatar

Ren has described the appearance of his avatar at the beginning of the game and the beta-testing phase as having the appearance of a ridiculously handsome protagonist from some fantasy animation His in-game height was equal to that of his height in the real world to prevent the extra height from hindering his movements.

In the full version of the game, during Akihiko Kayaba's tutorial, all player avatars were changed to reflect their real-life appearances. After this change, Ren's SAO avatar had spiky black hair and black eyes.

### ALfheim Online Avatar

Ren's ALO Avatar has Dark Red Hair his ears were pointy, and he had dark red wings.

### Gun Gale Online Avatar

Ren's Gun Gale Online Avatar belongs to the rare «M9000» series. It is an avatar that many male players dream of having He has unkempt black hair.

## Background

Born on August 4th, 2007 is the son of Shotaro Nakamura and Fuyumi Nakamura, 15 years before Sword Art Online. When he was younger, Renya considered his mother to be the center of his world, always smiling when he was with his mother and regularly holding her hand.

When Renya was just two years old his mother was raped by a Rapist where she gave birth to fraternal twins Hanabi and Fuyuha before she suffers an illness and died a few years later. Unaware of the circumstances of their birth, Renya was very closed to Hanabi and Fuyuha while they were children, but didn't know the circumstances behind their birth until he was ten years old and discover the circumstances behind his Mother's death and learn that Hanabi and Fuyuha were actually his half-siblings and soon became cold and distance toward Hanabi and Fuyuha.

## Chronology

### Sword Art Online Closed Beta

One of the lucky 10000 players accepted into the closed-beta, Ren logged hundreds of hours of playtime. He, along with the other top players, was able to reach the 10 before the beta had ended.

### Aincrad Arc

Shortly after logging in to the fully released SAO Ren meet two players named Kirito and Klein and after they befriended each other and training in the fields for several hours they were forcefully teleported back to the Town of Beginnings, to receive an announcement from Kayaba Akihiko. He revealed that the lack of a logout function, which they had recently realized, was a "feature" of his new game, and that forced removal of the Nerve Gear headpiece from the other side would fry the person's brain using microwaves.

The only means to escape was to clear the game, in other words, to successfully defeat all 100 floors of Aincrad and defeat the final boss. Ren immediately took off and later share a farewell with Kirito and Shuto.

## Trivia

* The name Ren is a shorter version of his real name.
* Ren is often thought to be college-age, but he reveals to Kirito and Shuto that he was 15 years old when SAO started.
* Ren often spends his time taking naps since his second year in SAO and tends to sleep in a quiet environment.
* Ren is shown to be skilled in fighting as he often gets into fights against Delinquents.
* Ren owned a motorcycle and rode one when he was only fifteen, buying it behind his father's back.