I am making a deviation from SAO novels and anime by slowing down progression slightly, and might not have it end at lvl 75 although I may never write to that point anyway. If you find things that I missed aside from this that the novels contradict feel free to tell me and I will try to fix them. Thank you for reading I hope you enjoy. (and yes this is my first story, so feel free to give constructive criticism.)
If you find a name for any of my skills or weapons from the novel, or think of a better one, please inform me since I am not great with naming.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Sword Art Online.
Prologue
I was in a rather odd situation. I was 13 and my name was Maiko, no now my name was Ningyo (doll), and I was one of about 10 people in this world that were smiling. Standing in the middle of a massive plaza with nearly 10,000 other people with shocked and horrified looks all around, I may have been the only one that was truly joyful. I had all begun nearly 2 years before. I had been riding my bike home from the dojo I learned naginata at when a passing car blew a tire and swerved into me. The pain was extraordinary, until it stopped, that was the worst part.
I was paralyzed lying in a hospital bed, watching my school lessons and inputting my answers verbally when it happened. Months ago the physical therapists had given up and so I was very surprised when one of the top ones in the hospital came in followed by a man in a business suit. I heard my mother out in the hall talking to my doctor, and after a minute they came in as well. Surprisingly the person to talk first was the man in the business suit. He said he was a representative from «Argus», and they wanted some beta testers that had a range of problems similar to mine to test their new game on «Nerve Gear». I had used «Nerve Gear» in some of my therapy sessions, and had a some experience with melee weapons so I was apparently a a very desirable tester for them. My mom wasn't hot on the idea, but the physical therapist talked about some of the advances «Sword Art Online» was making over previous programs using «Nerve Gear» and she was convinced to let me try.
During the testing it had been awesome, and due to the unique subset of testing I was in I even met some others with other problems. One boy was blind, another deaf. For the most part the «Nerve Gear» could get around these problems, though there was a lot of calibration work and such which we were there to give feedback on. In my case since I already had background with a Naginata the GM involved added a completed quest to my list to give me an extra skill «Naginata» to further the testing of fine motor control and such.
Even then though I was only allowed to be online for about 8 hours a day. Now since I was trapped, I was free. And I knew what I was going to do. Shortly before the end of the Beta I had reached level 5 of Aincrad, and found the start of the quest to get the Naginata skill. Now I just had to get to it again.
Chapter 1 Floor 1, November 6, 2022, Sunday.
At the moment I was starting again at level 1 with no skills though. I had my spear, it was only the basic starting one, but you had to get spear skills up to 100 to be able to gain the «Two-handed Polearm» skill which was needed to get the «Naginata» extra skill. While I had gotten reasonably far in the Beta I had primarily been focused on refining the quality of my movements, not gathering information. And unlike in the Beta I could not start with a Naginata, I would have to use relatively unfamiliar spear skills. But I had one real disadvantage over everyone else in this world. I was using my settings from the beta test. Most people had their pain settings at almost minimum, so they would feel from 5% to 10% of the pain they would in the real world. Due to my testing my pain feedback setting was at 6, so I would feel about 60% of what I should. So I had to be perfect, and that was going to be hard.
Still I had to start soon, boars would be simple to kill with a spear, but would be hunted quickly once people got over their shock and I needed better gear to feel confident moving to harder areas. So I slipped out of the plaza, and ran out of the city. I used the gate opposite the market hoping players would come to this area last and started killing boars. In Aincrad killing boars was easy, they have essentially only one attack pattern, they charge. Even without using sword skills you can kill them just by planting your spear and having them run onto it a few times. However using the initial «Forward Thrust» skill while a boar was charging was an instant kill as long as you hit it in the head or torso. After about an hour I had killed almost 50 boars, and a significant number of players had arrived so it was getting harder to find ones to kill. Also my spears durability was getting low, so I headed back into the starting city and headed for the market place.
As I walked through the marketplace I definitely got some looks of sympathy or surprise at times. I should probably explain, first off Sword Art Online was advertised as being for ages 15 or above, and was bought out very quickly by serious gamers. This meant almost 80% of the people were males from 17 to 30, and only about 0.5% were females under 15. Also I was still in my starting clothes which means they were just slightly nicer than rags. Not to mention while I had avoided getting hit even once by a boar, I still had been knocked on my ass a couple times when my spear hit a tusk and I got hit with some recoil, so they were dirty rags. To give you the picture I had put my spear in my inventory, so at 119 cm I was a short girl with shoulder length black hair, brown eyes and pale slightly olive skin in a patched and somewhat dirty tan shirt, and a decrepit mud-crusted short skirt, walking down a road lined with 160-180cm tall men in armor carrying weapons, and all looking rather scared. I was smiling, and a little lost in thoughts of what I should buy for armor. It was almost like a mouse happily walking down a hallway full of scared cats; it probably did seem very strange to anyone observing, but I was paying little attention as the shop I wanted was coming into view.
This was way to early for there to be player run shops so my first stop was a general store to sell all my loot. NPC shops didn't pay much for items, but it can add up, each boar I killed dropped between 50-100 col, and about 1 out of 3 dropped a «leather scrap» or «chipped tusk». Selling all but 3 chipped tusks got me another 470 col giving me a total of 4320 col. My next stop was a smith to repair my spear, and hopefully upgrade it. Since it was a ultra-low level weapon and I had 3 chipped tusks for materials it wasn't a surprise when it succeeded giving me a «rusty spear +1» «1S» (sharpness), and dropping me by 700 col. My next stop was a clothing store, I was rather ashamed of the clothes I was in I just hadn't been able to afford new ones till now and some of the stares were starting to get to me.
I went ahead and bought a white uwagi (jacket), and some some dark blue hakama (loose flowing pants). Getting them in black or white was cheapest, but adding color was only a little more, And it reminded me of what I wore at my dojo where everyone thought I was cute. This ran me down another 2600 col. But unlike the starting clothes these had a +1 agi bonus each. Since spears were strength based I had needed to put my first 3 stats into str, but I wanted to work on acrobatics as my second skill as I had found in the beta that it helped with the footwork, and when you were knocked back it was easier to land properly. Acrobatics required at least 2 agility to even get the skill and while it had to be base stats agility once I got my next level I could get it and the bonus would make it easier to level. I also went ahead and got a small leather chest protector to give me at least a small amount of defense.
Now I was ready, the only question was where do I go. This was a problem there were only a few mob types aside from boars nearby. There were the wolves in the plains a bit further away and the edge of the forest, but they mostly hunted in packs and unless you were in a group they could easily flank you. Further into the forest was the second village with some pitcher like plant monsters, but they had a weak point that was really hard to hit with a spear, swords would destroy them easily, but spears would be harder, and they spit acid which was difficult to avoid, and with my pain settings so high it had really really hurt in the beta. About as far as that village in a different direction was a cave of bats which was a good hunting ground for «Throwing Blade» users, and I just might be able to get by with my spear, but I didn't really like going there for two reasons, if no one was there I could get swarmed, and if there were people they would mostly be «Throwing Blade» users which was by far most common amongst pkers in the beta. Leaving me with only one good option, finding a party. But first I needed to sleep.
Level 1: Str 3, Agi 0+2; Spear 1
