Location from Sword Art Online by Reki Kawahara
A quiet farming village at the Underworld's edge — where Kirito woke up with no memories, Eugeo chopped a tree for seven years, and Alice was taken away.
Rulid Village is the Underworld's Shire — a peaceful starting point that the heroes must leave and eventually return to, changed by what they've seen. It's a farming community where everyone has a Calling (assigned occupation), nobody questions the Taboo Index, and the Axiom Church's authority is accepted as naturally as gravity. The village's defining feature is the Gigas Cedar — an enormous tree that two boys (Eugeo, then Kirito) were assigned to chop down as their Calling. It's an impossible task by design: the tree regenerates faster than anyone can cut it. The task is the Underworld's metaphor: a system that gives you work that can never be completed, to keep you busy and obedient.
A small, idyllic farming village of wooden houses with thatched roofs, surrounded by fields, forests, and the looming End Mountains to the north. The Gigas Cedar — an enormous tree wider than a house — sits in a central clearing, its trunk scarred by years of axe marks. A stream runs through the village. It looks like a Ghibli painting: peaceful, warm, and slightly too perfect.
Also known as: Rulid Village, Rulid