World Tree

The **World Tree** (世界樹, *Sekaiju*), known as **Yggdrasil** (イグドラシル, *Igudorashiru*), the massive tree in the center of ALfheim Online.

## Synopsis

### Fairy Dance Arc

#### Pre-Episode 13

Not much is known about the World Tree's purpose in ALO, but after the game's sudden explosion in popularity rumors began to spread that if a player reached the top of the tree, they'd be granted any wish by the Fairy King, Oberon. This sparked a competition between all the Races in the game, which became known as the "Race War". This eventually spiralled into the players treating other players, who were roleplaying as a difference race, like lesser beings and a lot of racial violence.

Months later, when SAO was finally beaten, the game's admin and Oberon's player, Nobuyuki Sugou, managed to prevent a few of the players from waking up and began using them as test subjects for his plan to exploit SAO's Charisma stat and brainwash people. One of these players was Asuna Yuuki, who he kept imprisoned at the top of the World Tree until he had completed the brainwashing technology, marry her, and inherit her family's money.

Unfortunately for Oberon, during this time, a group of players exploited the game's flight system in a way that got them high enough to take a few pictures of the top of the World Tree, and in one of them Asuna could be seen in her cage. This picture was spread around tons of message boards, until it was eventually seen by Tiffany, who was friends with Asuna's boyfriend, Kazuto Kirigaya.

#### Episode 13

Once Kazuto found out about Asuna being at the top of the tree, he logged into ALO to try and rescue her. Once in the game, Kirito spawned Yui into the game, who, after finding out Asuna was in trouble, detected Asuna at the top of the World Tree and calculated that they could be there is six hours. She then forced Kirito to take off flying to try and get there in time.

#### Episode 14

After saving Leafa from a group of Salamanders, Kirito asked her about the tree. After briefly confusing it with the Math Tree, Leafa agreed to explain it at Sylvaine. Once there, she told Kirito all about the Race War, and eventually agreed to join him on his mission. But she soon realized that Kirito was actually her real life brother and logged out before he could do the same.

Meanwhile, Oberon payed Asuna one of his many visits to taunt her about her fate, revealing his evil plan to brainwash her and the rest of the world. But all this did was motivate Asuna into constantly escaping to annoy Oberon and waste his time.

#### Episode 15

The next day, Kirito sets off on his journey to the World Tree, which was briefly delayed by Leafa leading him on a wild goose chase, due to being under the misinterpretation that Kirito was in the game to mess with her.

Back at the World Tree, Oberon tries to get Asuna to focus on planning their wedding, instead of constantly escaping and terrorising her guards. When this fail, he decides to break Asuna's hope by revealing that Kirito is in the game to try and save her, but he won't succeed, due to gates being completely impregnable. But this only enrages Asuna, who threatens to torture Oberon if he even lays a finger on Kirito. Oberon tries to hide his fear, by reminding her how her fate is inevitable, but Asuna somehow escapes again while he is saying this, leaving Oberon to pick out a china pattern without her.

## Trivia

* In Norse mythology, the World Tree, Yggdrasil, was the cosmic tree the Vikings believed the Earth was a part of.