The beta test had just ended.
I had received my own copy of Sword Art Online, and the official launch was in 1 week. I was anxious to enter SAO because in all honesty, I had met more people online than I did in real life.
I had attended school as usual but I hadn't really payed attention to anything. I sighed and got up from my bed. My legs were wobbly so I had to sit back down almost immediately.
Sitting down and pondering life for minutes on end will do that to you. After a few minutes, I was able to walk again. My parents weren't home again, conveniently. They rarely were, after some new jobs had forced them to commute to China.
After an agonizing week of wait, SAO had finally launched. I waited for a few hours after the launch to try and avoid as much lag as possible. Even so, it took half an hour for the game to fully start up. I entered my name into the space for it, Akira.
Wait, did I just use my real name online? Crap. The blur of colors and sounds made me lose my train of thought as I spawned into the world of SAO. I shook my head, clearing my vision of the residual spots that didn't exist. It looked even better than the beta test did. Best of all, there were the people, thousands of them, milling about and convulsing everywhere you looked. Wait, no, conversing. They were conversing.
I had waited 3 hours so that I wouldn't experience any lag with all the people logging in at once. Our house's wifi was pretty bad. I had expected the town to be more muted as the excitement wore off, and it was. But upon further inspection, many of the other players looked terrified and afraid. Do they not like being in this new world?
I snickered as I saw a few people jump to their deaths off the edge of the starting town.
Maybe I should try that at some point, seems pretty funny! It's basically sky-diving, but free!
Being a beta tester, I knew that one of the most important things in this MMORPG was to farm at the early levels.
I sprinted out into the fields surrounding the town. I recognized a few of the people there, having seen them from the beta test. Since there weren't many people around, I found a good spot to start farming. After getting a hold of my new weapon, I charged up a sword skill and went at one of the wild boars near me.
I got a good swing off, but it only clipped the boar on the side of it's chest. Although it didn't look like it was that great of a shot, the boar was nonetheless drained of half its health. It turned immediately and went all rage mode on me. Charging and swinging its tusks. I charged up another sword skill but only managed to deflect the boar's horn instead of damaging it. I still knocked the boar back, so it would have to charge me to actually attack me.
It took the initiative. Charging at me, I dodged to the side and stabbed it with a new sword skill. It burst apart into shards. I didn't think it would give me that much EXP, but it did, I leveled up. Smiling, I checked out the post-battle screen and prepared to continue.
About a month later, I was still on the first floor, to no fault of my own. The entire "front line" was stopped in its tracks. We, as a group, had found the floor dungeon, but to my knowledge we had yet to find the boss room itself. And even if someone had found the boss room, they were either dead or keeping silent.
I was facing some Kobolds in the outer regions of Aincrad. I was about to finish off a weakened kobold when a huge amount of them banded together to face me.
I knew that I was able to fight one of them 1-on-1 but 6 at a time? This was going to be a chore, assuming I could even win.
I charged up a sword skill and went after the mob in front of me. It wasn't moving, so there must have been some strange thing going on with the aggro. However, a new kobold came and blocked my strike.
Out of my peripheral vision I saw another kobold charge at me. The perils of fighting 1-on-6, I guess. I braced myself for its sword to hit, when someone came out of nowhere and stabbed the kobold in the side. It exploded into pieces.
That must have taken some crazy Strength, because that definitely wasn't a crit area.
With the help of my comrade-in-arms, we managed to kill all of the kobolds together. After I had stabbed the last one through the chest and watched it burst into pieces, I turned around and saw the other person staring back at me. He seemed familiar, and spoke first.
"Hi, my name's Kirito, are you alright?"
"I'm fine, thanks for saving me. Oh, right, um, my name's Akira."
"Hmm... Akira, were you one of the beta testers? You look like you know what you're doing."
"Yeah, I was. You must be too, I think I remember seeing you on the 3rd or 4th floor."
"Maybe you did, I wouldn't doubt it." He shrugged. "Hey, I heard that some people are meeting up tomorrow morning in order to discuss how to defeat the boss of the first floor, wanna come?"
"So they've found the boss room? That's a relief. Yeah, I think I'll come, what about you?"
"I'm coming. See you there, try not to die until then."
"Dude, it's tomorrow. If I survived 'till here, there's no way I'm dying now." He gave an amused snort. "See you around, Kirito!"
Kirito turned and started walking back towards the Starting City.
I nodded to myself. I was definitely going. Not only would I get a load of EXP from beating the boss, I might even get a good item if I managed to get the Last Attack - often abbreviated to "LA" - on the boss. I starting walking back to town.
-The Next Day-
"Alright then, listen up! Tomorrow, we will be conducting the boss raid. In order to do this, we are going to need all the information we can get." The person named Diabel announced. He was apparently the person who called the meeting, and its self-styled leader.
"Hold on, wait just a minute! Before we start, I want to talk to a whole bunch of people here! The stupid Beta Testers!"
Murmurs started up.
"They were the ones that took all the good farming spots and low level quests right in the beginning, and what's more they abandoned the rest of us who knew nothing! All these deaths could have been prevented! So I say that we can't trust them unless every single one of them apologizes to all the people they've killed!"
The rest of the players, which until this point had only been muttering their consent, had now changed to an uproar. This encouraged the person, named Kibaou, to continue talking.
"So all of the beta testers should come down and beg on their knees for forgiveness! They are the ones to blame for everyone dying!"
Kirito turned to me with much the same expression as I did on my face. Were we going to be found out?
A deep voice rose among the crowd. A tall person stood up from the front row. His skin was dark and his head was bald.
"Wait. Your claim is that the beta testers should be blamed because they didn't share their prior knowledge with everyone?" Kibaou automatically took a step back from the larger man's implied challenge.
"Yeah, so?"
"All of the information you speak of was available at most of the shops. It was in this free booklet which provided information for the entire floor. Low level quests, farming spots, items, bosses even. All of it was here, and all of it was compiled and published by Beta Testers."
The man turned to face the crowd. He brought out his copy of the slightly tannish book and tapped it for emphasis. Kibaou grumbled to himself, frustrated at losing his momentum. Many of the players at the meeting had bought and used the "Information Booklet" at some point, but were simply unaware of its origins.
Agil and Kibaou both left to their seats, and Diabel called out to all the players gathered in front of him,
"We are going to need to assault the boss in parties, so let's form them now before the actual fight. Parties can be groups of 2-6."
People instantly broke off into friendly groups of 5 or 6. Most of them had probably worked together before. With no one asking to be in a party with us, we made a up a party of ourselves. Kirito glanced next to him and saw a person in a red coat sitting off alone nearby. From their general figure I assumed assumed it was a she, but I wasn't sure.
I was waiting for Kirito to notice her. After he did, Kirito asked her if she wanted to be in a party with us. After processing the question, she quickly joined. I saw her name next to her HP gauge. It was Asuna.
The next day, the entire group went out to fight the boss. Our party stayed in the back, Asuna wasn't a beta tester, it seems. She just didn't have the same understanding of game mechanics I would expect out of one of us.
Diabel pushed open the door to the boss chamber. It had been a bit of a struggle to get through the dungeon, but none of us were dead yet. From the information booklet, we learned that the boss, Illfang the Kobold Lord, had 4 HP gauges, as did all the other bosses in SAO.
When the boss fight started he would spawn multiple ruin sentinels, elite kobolds. After his health last health bar reached red, his weapon should switch from his regular ax and shield into a talwar, a curved blade.
We entered the boss room. It was huge, and almost pitch black.
Thoom!
Two torches right near us on the tall walls lit up.
Thoom!
Thoom!
Thoomthoomthoomthoomthoomthoomthoomthoom!
Torches lit up in the dark chamber, forming an ever-expanding lightened area that progressed into the depths of the room.
Until they illuminted Illfang.
The monstrous beast of red and blue lept off his seat and landed in front of us. He reared back his head and roared, showering us with electronic spittle. His Ruin Kobold Sentinels spawned.
The boss fight had begun.
