It was a strange feeling, the bodiless void one found when launching Sword Art Online; a brief moment of floating without sensory input before suddenly flying through a tunnel of speeding light and color. Akira had never quite felt anything like it and for a moment he felt his heart begin to race in panic as he instinctively reached out for any sort of stability, though he had no hands with which to grab even if he did find something. He wasn’t even sure how he could feel his own heartbeat without a body to speak of but was actually comforted by that sensation.
After a moment the world began to slow and soon he was being bombarded by loading messages. They passed quickly by his vision, system checks according to what little text he caught as they flew past, and then a singular login screen appeared hovering before him. His mind was slowly becoming used to the Nerve Gear system and he found he could type as he would on any computer keyboard, quickly entering his credentials he’d made on the game’s website not thirty minutes ago. Next was the character creation screen, but Akira paid it little attention: he didn’t come into this game to be some other person.
Did he?
He chose a preset, a tall olive-skinned warrior with a handsome appearance, long graceful limbs and flowing black hair tied into a long ponytail. Next came his ‘starting kit’ selection, though Akira wasn’t sure what half of the names were alluding to. Myrmidon? As in the ancient Greek nation? He settled on ‘rogue’ simply because it sounded classy enough and as soon as he accepted his selection there was a tingling sensation as his avatar was created by the system. Looking down at himself he was once overcome by the strange sensation of seeing, and
feeling a body that wasn’t your own. The system prompted him to touch his own arms and legs, to bend in certain ways, as some sort of calibration and when that was finally finished a single message was left before him.
“Welcome to Sword Art Online!”A soft breeze was blowing across the main plaza of the starting zone and Akira marveled at the feeling of it knowing full well it was nothing but a computer simulation. He could taste spring in the air, feel the sun warming his skin, and hear the calls of unknown birds in the distance: sensations so carefully sculpted by the game’s designers that he would never have known them to be fake had he simply woken up in this place. Akira’s dark eyes blinked as his HUD loaded, several displays and colored bars appearing in the corners of his vision and just as a test he reached out and poked one of the icons. He hesitantly scrolled through the system settings but didn’t change anything and finally closed the window with another flick of his finger. There was an inventory screen and he noticed he was given some starting equipment: “Starter Leather Armor” and “Starter Dagger”. He could see the armor was nothing more than a thick leather chestplate over a simple blue-linen shirt and dark linen pants, clearly ‘starter’ as its name suggested, and there was a small straight-bladed dagger sheathed on his hip. He didn’t notice any other weapons and scrolled through again just to be sure. Maybe his equipped sword was in another screen? Exiting the menus he glanced around and saw there were many other new players logging in, more and more every minute. He wanted to get away from the crowds and so walked down the main street, eyes taking in every distinct building and shop along the road. There were more people here as well, shopkeepers and stall owners, but Akira wasn’t sure if they were overly-enthusiastic role players or incredible computer simulations. He passed through a massive stone gate and took a sharp breath as he saw the starter fields spread out before him. It was an amazing sight, so full of color and life vastly different from the crowded streets of Tokyo, and he couldn’t help but stand agape. Shaking away the moment feeling embarrassed for himself though none of the people around seemed to notice or care, he walked further from the walls until he saw a handful of other players moving around killing the large boars which were milling about.
Moving down the bluff towards one of the creatures he noticed a floating red crystal over a thin green bar. Stepping within a few feet of the creature, it turned to him with an angry grunt, its glowing red eyes regarding him angrily.
“Sword… start?” he muttered to no effect and without waiting for another attempt the beast charged forward with a squeal. Akira cried out, holding his arms up in defense, as the boar barreled into him and sent him flying back onto his behind.
“Ouch…” He muttered instinctively, though he was amazed at the lack of any pain sensation from the headbutt. The boar went back to its milling about as Akira picked himself up, face red with the humiliation of being bested by a pig. Drawing the small knife, he looked at his reflection in the blade wondering if the game really expected him to fight with such a puny thing. He wasn’t going to back down, give up and let this world win just like the real one had, and with an angry growl he charged forward with an attack of his own.
Thirty minutes later he picked himself up for the twenty-seventh time, gasping heavily as the unscathed boar chewed on some tall field grass. A flashing indicator showed one of his HUD bars had gotten smaller and was now nothing more than a tiny sliver of red.
“HP…?” He panted, wiping a few beads of sweat from his brow. He swiped the flashing indicator away, eyes glaring at the creature that was mocking him in its own way. Never in his life had he been stopped in such a manner, hit such a wall as this pig was representing, and up until this point Akira had truly believed there was nothing he couldn’t overcome.
But this
stupid pig!?
The rage seethed inside him but he pushed it down, bringing some form of calm back to his mind so that he could focus on the challenge at hand. He raised the small dagger carefully, planning out his next attack well before the attempt, and as he held there a strange humming sensation trembled from the leather hilt, spreading down his arm. With a final burst of effort Akira dashed forward, body guided by the system, and his now glowing blade pierced straight through the creature’s flank. The thin green bar quickly shrank to yellow then red before winking out of existence, clearly some sort of life bar, and with one final groan the boar toppled over and exploded into a shower of pixelated blue sparks. A small victory screen appeared and informed him he’d apparently gotten a piece of ‘boar hide’ and one ‘chunk of boar meat’ along with 24 ‘XP’ and 5 ‘Cor’, though he had no idea what those were. He took a long moment to bask in his victory, and to catch his breath, before searching out the next creature to attempt the same attack on.
The hours flew by and before long Akira had killed a few dozen of the boars and had even reached Level 2 according to a message from the system. He had no idea how the strength and agility stats worked in the game so he distributed his three points at random. It was just as he was debating logging off for the night or going back into town to try and trade his collection of boar pieces for a
real weapon when he suddenly found himself back in the starting plaza. It was crowded, thousands of other players standing about and looking as confused as he felt, and after a long moment the massive figure appeared in the sky to address them. Though it was a bit too much for Akira to fully understand,
They could truly die in here?, he could read the fearful gasps and cries of alarm echoing through the crowds well enough and there was certainly no log-out button in his menus. The mirror in his inventory had the same effect as it did on everyone else but, in a way, Akira was more relieved to be back in his regular body: it was a body he could trust and one he could rely on in the coming days. He slipped quickly out of the plaza and headed again for the main gate just as the chaos erupted. Though he had no idea where he was going or what he was going to do he determined getting out of the city would be best. People were in a panic, a frenzy, a regular
riot, but there had to be someone around who knew what was going on, someone who he could use to survive this game which was feeling more and more real every second.
Member
Xaltwind
