Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

This idea had been stuck in my mind since forever and wouldn't leave me alone, so here it is now laid before you. Hope you guys like it.

"Normal Speaking"

'Thoughts'

Chapter: Prologue

Elder Tale, it was the most known game in the history of gaming. An MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) which revolutionized the gaming history. It was the world's largest and most popular MMORPG in history that had earned a dedicated following of millions of players over the course of its 20-year history. After all of its expansions and updates it had become the most popular game that captured hearts of many that played it.

It operated as any RPG games with Classesand Sub-Classes. It also came with its own Races such as Human, Dwarf, Elf, and Half-Alvand so on each with its own strengths and weaknesses, along with the choice of classes such as Warrior, Specialized-Weaponry, Healer, and Mage.

Warrior:

-Guardian.

-Monk.

-Samurai.

Specialized-Weaponry:

-Swashbuckler.

-Bard.

-Assassin.

Healer:

-Druid.

-Cleric.

-Kannagi.

Mage:

-Enchanter.

-Sorcerer.

-Summoner.

The classes chosen were permanent and each class having its own unique strengths and weaknesses as well. There were also numerous sub-classes which do not have this restriction of being permanent, making it possible for players to change their subclass, provided that they are willing to lose all subclass experience points to switch.

The players would create a character of their liking and then go to many adventures or quests in the game. Quests handed out by the NPC's or Non-Player Characters when talking to them or would give hints to a quest.

These were the basics of Elder Tales where players would play with each other to complete quests, go on adventures to find better items, weapons etc. to make their characters more stronger or to grow in fame.

A blond mop of hair was seen lying down on a computer table which had three monitors placed side by side such that all of them faced him and a minimum of 10 packs of instant ramen cups surrounding him with his computer still running and displaying a dialogue box with Elder Tales written in bold letters and a huge tree in the background.

The person was sleeping soundly until his phone started to ring.

"Ughh…five more minutes..."

When the ringing didn't stop for a painful ten seconds he got up with a stretch and scratching his eyes and started to search for the damnable device while mumbling about 'good for nothing' and 'alarms'.

The phone was a standard sliding set with a full keyboard and was ringing with a passion so sliding the thing he answered the call.

"Yeah, it's me."

"What are you doing?"

The calm voice that he had associated with his friend replied. He could imagine his friend tapping his finger on a desk with an annoyed face while waiting for his answer.

"Oh come on give me a break here I was up all night. I just slept like four hours…tops."

He grouched.

"I don't care. Who told you to slack on your assignments?"

"But…but…"

"No buts. Come to Susukino already I know you logged out when you were in Akiba yesterday."

"Ok."

While he was tired, how could he say no to play the most enjoyable game.

"Alright just gotta login and use the gate. Hey, isn't the new expansion supposed to be launched today?"

"Ok. Yes it is going to be launched in a few moments."

"I wonder how many things will be changed and added."

"Don't wonder, get to Susukino now I'm waiting."

"Alright Sheesh can't you wait a minute I'm at the Thousand Generation Gate right now."

"What are you doing there?"

There was Incredulity in the voice.

"I spawned here alright don't blame me."

He pouted.

"Don't be sad now."

And now he was being treated like a baby, just great.

"I'm not. And don't treat me like a baby."

"Hmm the new expansion pack seems to be launching now."

Completely forgetting about the previous anger he cheered.

"Ohhhohoho Yeah."

"How long is it going to take you to reach the gate?"

This time it was not him that was grouching. They had switched to telepathy to not raise the phone bill so they were talking through the game interface.

"Just about there."

Telepathy a game function where one could talk with anyone anywhere who was listed as a friend in the game.

And the Gate or as it was called the Inter City Transport Gate, the gates were installed in the main five regions. Akiba, Susukino, Shibuya, Minami and Nakaso the main regions in the Japanese server were the ones equipped with the gates.

Just as he was about to reach the gate his vision erupted in a white flash and he found himself in another place.

As he opened his eyes he saw that he was in a four Way Street in front of a huge blue building that looked suspiciously like the cathedral from the game he was playing moments ago.

"What the hell I could have sworn I was in my room just a second ago."

He muttered as he looked around his surroundings.

"Naruto…where are you?"

That sounded extremely familiar to him, but no one was speaking to him or relatively close to him for him to hear that with perfect clarity. So then how was he hearing that?

"Hello?"

He responded but was not entirely sure that he was going to get a reply.

But he did.

"Hello, where are you?"

There was urgency in the voice that he hadn't heard for a long time coming from his friend. And the telepathy that they were using before was not disconnected either.

Good, he didn't know what he would have done if he was alone in this mass of freaked out people.

"I think I'm in Akiba, in front of the cathedral. Where are you? What the hell is happening here?"

"I think I'm in the Susukino, just beside the transport gate…Ughh great..."

Whoa, calmed down quickly.

"Maybe this is just a dream?"

That came out way too weak for him. Even he knew that this wasn't a dream he could feel everything like how he would when he was awake and when he looked around him he could also see other people in a similar state to himself so he was about 70 percent sure that this was not a dream. He could hope though.

"Ha, fat chance."

"So what are we going to do?"

"Let's try and meet up somewhere."

"Yeah can you try and come here. If this is the game then the gate should still work right?"

"I'm not too sure about that…"

"Why?"

There was a deep sinking feeling in his gut that told him that what he was about to hear was not going to be something pleasant or anywhere near that.

"Because I'm trying and it's not working."

"What about the Fairy Ring?"

"I don't know where the Fairy Ring will take me."

Fairy Ring, it was another means of transport for the players but unlike the Inter City Transport Gate the Fairy Ring was keyed to transport Players according to the phase of the moon and it could transfer a player from a zone to another to another server entirely, so it was a bit risky to use without any guides.

"Guess that means that we're stuck, wherever we are."

"How are you so calm right now?"

"I don't know guess this is not enough of a shock to me for freaking out."

"Good keep it that way and stay out of trouble."

He had an uncanny ability to get into some huge mess and combined with his persona, the mess was bound to be big.

"'Stay out of trouble' what do you mean stay out of trouble?"

The voice came out as flat as it could be.

"You know what I mean."

"Hey, I don't go looking for trouble."

"Riiiight."

He grouched. But it could still be heard from the telepathy.

"Trouble comes looking for me."

"And you can't let it go past you without messing with it because?"

Alright maybe it was his fault that he got into a lot of trouble and some unpleasant situations before. But it was not his fault that he couldn't keep from helping others and doing what he thought was right. He had a tiny problem of hero complex, so what, it was not his fault he found some people bullying someone.

"Alright, you stay safe too."

"Of course, who do you think I am?"

"A bratty person who has to record every single thing that peaks your interest and thinks can do anything you want to."

He deadpanned.

"I'm not like that."

"Yes you are."

"Ahhh whatever I'm going to explore."

"You're enjoying this aren't you? It's just another mystery or adventure for you."

The voice chirped brightly.

"You bet it is. It was getting boring back there. Nothing interesting happening, nothing new just the same old place, routine and whatnot but now we have a chance to see something that we could not see before."

"Right…try not to get into trouble. You're just as bad as me when it comes to getting in trouble ok. Don't go around putting your nose in others business."

"Ok, ok"

The voice sounded distracted, as if just replying for the sake of it without thinking about it.

He sighed.

"And she's ignoring me now. So how do you end a telepathy call?"

As he tried to figure out how to end the call the system menu opened up with the call at the front.

"Well that's convenient."

He clicked the [End Call] option and looked at the other options.

[Skills] [Equipment] [Quest] [Items] [Logout] [Property] [Friends List]

His status screen appearing beside the Interface containing all of his information and his location all outlined by a greed bar, he couldn't help but be amazed at seeing it. It was different from seeing it from a screen and seeing it in real life, in front of his face.

[Naruto

Race/Human

Assassin, Lv. 90]

As he kept walking he came across many of the abandoned buildings with a small river running alongside it. As he went to sit beside the river he saw his reflection staring back at him. He made the character resemble his own person when making it, good thing.

What stared back at him was a face remarkably similarly to his own complete with his yellow mane he called his hair that reached his neck, blue eyes, and his whisker like birthmarks.

He was wearing a black flak jackets* with many pockets and a deep blue long sleeved shirt beneath with baggy pants that was kept in his opened toed sandals that he got from a quest. He also had a small bag on the left side of his back and some bandages wrapped around his ankles and black fingerless gloves with metal plates on the back on his hands. Why the bandages, he had no idea but it had made his character look badass so he had kept it that way.

He also had a sword going horizontally over his back with the handle having silver trimmings crisscrossing through the hilt without a guard and the sheath was a plain dark blue one without any engravings. When he took out the sword he saw a dual edged, dark but quite not black, blade with some runic symbols running in the flat side of the blade.

It looked more beautiful than in the screen that was for sure and he checked the name of the blade, Faithkeeper, fancy name he knew but it served well and he had no reason to change it.

Now that he had done most of everything that came to mind.

'What should I do?'

So he sat there contemplating what he would do now while people around him panicked about. The other players were too into their own hysteria to notice that he was calm and was just sitting quietly, but few of the NPC's did look towards him in wonder while fending off the more violent of the players demanding to see the GM or Game Master.

'Now that I think about it do I still have all my things?'

With that he opened the status screen and selected the [Items] and it opened to reveal more windows showing that he had most of his items in his Magic Bags.

Magic Bag, an item created by using a purple flame crystal and the skin of a Wyvern, could hold large amount of items without weighing down the player and thus helping a player carry large amount of items. He had personalized his own magic bags with multiple internal pockets made like sections to organize the items he had. He had two magic bags made such that he kept one inside the other. He used the one inside to store items such as food, clothes, water etc. and other things and used the other to store his weapons and other armors and miscellaneous things he might need immediately while playing.

He knew most of the items so he checked where the weapons he most frequently used were located in the bag. Throwing-weapons: check. Katana: check. Swords: check. Scythes: check. Broadswords: Check. Daggers: check. Battle-Axe: check.

Hey Assassins were capable of using most of the weapons and be able to dual-wield so why not?

So now the only thing he had to do was get battle experience and he would be ready to start trying to get to Susukino.

But since he didn't know how to battle yet all he had was the basic motions he could do. Maybe he could go to a battle prepared and select which skills he wanted to use? Ha as if he would get the time to select skills in a middle of monsters that would like to kill him.

So then how about just swinging a weapon combined with the speed a Lv. 90 Assassin would have? Well no use just thinking about it.

With that he went to a field he was sure there would be some low level monsters like Brier Weasels, Goblins and Goblin Shamans intent on finding low level monsters to practice.

Night Time

It was already night time and he hadn't encountered a single monster. It was getting mind numbingly frustrating and he was starting to get hungry and tired. So calling it a day he returned back to Akiba intent on finding a lodge or an inn, eat and sleep.

It was due to this fatigue and hunger that he didn't see two kids going where he had just returned from and that several people were following the kids.

And when he finally reached the inn he found a horrifying truth when he started to eat. The food had no taste. It was like trying to eat something like cardboard actually even cardboard had better taste than what he was eating.

Actually was he the only one having this problem?

So to find the rather troubling answer he called the only one he could trust and knew personally via telepathy.

"Hello, Mitsuko, you there?"

This was important dammit pick up already!

'Hello Naruto yes I'm here. What do you want?'

"Have you eaten anything yet?"

'Yes I have. Though I wish I hadn't though'

The last part came as a mutter though so he had a pretty solid idea what the answer was going to be.

"The food didn't have any taste did it?"

Ohh why? They were going to be trapped for who knows how long and now they didn't even have proper food now. Just something that looked like food but didn't taste like it.

'No…and anything you drink is like drinking tap water.'

"Goddammit. It only fills our stomach and makes the hunger go away."

He was almost ready to cry at this point.

'Ugh anything more I need to know and what did you do today?'

There was an accusatory tone in her voice when she said that almost as if she knew he had been caught in some kind of trouble.

"No I didn't get into any kind of trouble. Just wonder around the fields trying to find some monsters to gain battle experience."

'Really, so what did you find?'

"Absolutely nothing, there wasn't even one monster to fight and I ended up walking around till night."

'You do know that lower leveled monsters will just ignore or outright avoid you since you are at Lv. 90 right?'

"…"

'Ugh god you are so stupid, I swear.'

"Hey I'm not stupid."

'…'

The silence was heavy and mixed with sarcasm.

"Well not that stupid."

'Go to the Archive Tower Forest tomorrow the monsters there will go aggro on sight and attack you even if you have a lot of level gap in between. Now sleep.'

"Alright thanks. Goodnight."

'Goodnight.'

And that's that. Like it? Hate it? Feel free to leave some suggestions and ideas so that I can make it better. Thanks. R&R.