One month after the GGO incident, Suguha "Leafa" Kirigaya shows her brother Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya a news article about a legendary item, the Holy Sword Excaliber, which has been discovered in a floating dungeon located in Jötunheimr in ALO. The two rally Asuna Yuuki, Shino "Sinon" Asada, Ryōtarō "Klein" Tsuboi, Keiko "Silica" Ayano and Rika "Lisbeth" Shinozaki together to prepare for the mission to retrieve Excaliber. They enter Jötunheimr through a secret passageway and use Tonky, a friendly beast evil god monster resembling a flying jellyfish-elephant, to fly towards the dungeon. They witness players assisting a humanoid evil god monster to massacre a beast evil god monster. Suddenly, Urðr, the Queen of the Lake, appears behind them and explains that the massacre was ordered by Thrym, the King of the Frost Giants, who threw Excaliber into Urðr's Spring and caused the formerly green world of Jötunheimr to turn into an icy wasteland. She requests them to retrieve Excaliber from the bottom of the dungeon, the inverted ice pyramid Thrymheim, before all of the beast evil god monsters are slaughtered.