Author's Note: Yo, guys! First time trying out a fanfic, so I hope I can do well with this. I also hope to update whenever I can, but when "whenever I can" is really all depends. Anyway, thanks for checking this out, and enjoy!
Finally.. I thought. I'm finally going to get into possibly the worlds best game.
The year is 2022. I walk up the long, steep hill to my house in my favorite country in the world, Japan. I may be American, but even I admit that the U.S. has a lot of problems. I love Japan though, so when I was offered the chance to get a free trip to Japan for one year of school (I've had the highest grade in my school since kindergarden), I, of course, agreed. The first thing I did was buy as many language programs as possible so I could learn Japanese, and about 4 months later, I was fully fluent and on my way to Japan. But anyway, that's not the point. Wait, why am I thinking about all this again? Maybe because I'm so excited to be able to be here for this game I just bought, I was thinking about how it happened. I don't know.
I got to the top of the hill, then turned right, and walked just a bit further to my house. I walked in, took off my shoes, and gave a quick greeting to my transfer hosts. They understood what was going on completely, as I've been talking about how hyped I was about the release of the brand new game called Sword Art Online. It's a "new" type of game, a VRMMO, as they call it. That's because it uses technology that allows us to do a Full Dive into the game, intercepting all of our brain waves and instead sending them to our virtual avatar. I hadn't thought technology like this was even possible, so the concept of being able to do this was amazing. In fact, I loved the idea so much, I spent all the money my parents gave me for suveneirs on the NerveGear (the helmet that allowed us to make the Full Dive) and SAO itself.
I ran upstairs, dissapointed in myself for having taken my time to get home. I was already four minutes too late for the launch. Although I'm at the top of my class, every year, every class (including P.E.), I'm a big gamer, so to be late to something like this seemed like a crime to me.
The first thing I did was quickly change from my school uniform to something more comfortable. Unfortunatley, I couldn't jump straight in-game, either. First, I had some homework (a 2,000 word essay and some English work, which were both going to be a breeze). After that, I had to do as much research on the game as possible before I jumped in. I already knew exactly how MMO's work, of course, but I needed to know the specifics for SAO. The game may have only just launched today, but there were one thousand people who participated in the beta, so I knew I could get some info.
Two hours later, my homework done, I decided I had learned enough about the game, and that I was ready to jump in. I shut down my computer, left my homework neatly organized on my desk for the hosts to see, and got in bed. It was now 3:27 PM, exactly two hours and twenty-three minutes after the official launch. By this time, I was really angry about not having been in-game already, but a guy's got to do what a guy's got to do, and in this case, it was homework.
I put on the helmet and waited until the very next minute, 3:28 PM. Then, I said loud and clear, "Link Start!". I was welcomed to the game by my vision going completely blank, replaced with a white screen. Some messages popped up, notifying me that all my senses were properly in-check and being taken control of.. just, a little better-sounding than that. It just showed "Sight: OK. Touch: OK." etc. etc. blah blah blah. The next thing up was the terms of use. I always skip over these things, so I did just that. When I came up to the account creation, I typed in my usual account information; Username: Coover55. Password: ***************. I didn't see an e-mail field, so I just pressed Create Account. The game notified me that I can't use numbers in my username, so I just used Coover instead. I was told everything was okay, and then heard a smooth-sounding female voice say "Hello, and welcome to Sword Art Online," accompanied by a wall of text in front of me that said the same thing, minus the "Hello, and" part. The next thing I saw was the background do a cool fade-in effect to a new image, showing a black background and stars. The screen showed the character creation options. I spent a good twenty minutes making my character, and came out with something looking as close to me as possible. Medium height, medium weight, blonde-haired, blue-eyed 15-year-old, with a face that wasn't too bad to look at, if I do say so myself. I continued on to the game, skipping the introductory to MMO's for new MMO players.
When my vision came clear again, I was standing in the middle of a gigantic, circular area with a clock tower in the middle. Marble walls with reddish ceilings, and some kind of polished, white, stone floor that wasn't marble, but similar enough for me to just think f**k it, it's marble. I flex my muscles to make sure that everything is responding correctly, and once I'm satisfied that it is, I decide to move on out. The first person I saw was a tallish black-haired skinny guy around my age, so I asked him where I could find a shop.
"Well, you can find one right over there," he said, pointing towards a smallish building. "But you're gonna have to get some money first. We don't get starting money in SAO. You know what I'm talking about, right?"
"Yeah, I know what you're talking about." I responded. "Thanks. I just didn't think we'd get a sword automatically, just money, like usual. Where's the nearest hunting grounds?"
"Just follow that path as far as possible. After a little while, you'll walk out of the city and into the plains. That's your hunting grounds."
"Thanks."
So, I continued on to the hunting grounds. About an hour later, I decided I had killed enough boars to have the money I needed, so I headed back to where the store was and sold all the drops I got, then blew all my money on a brand-new sword and a set of leather armor. Surprisingly, I had exactly enough afterwards to buy a hotel room. That sounds weird in a video game, but all hotel rooms in this game have extra storage, so I can store my stuff in there until I managed to find the bank and get an account in it. Besides, once I log out, I want to log out away from everyone else.
I bought the room, walked in, dropped off my stuff in the room storage, and layed down on the bed.
I sighed.
Man, I love technology.