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"A-Am I going to die?!"

Still panting heavily, Hama looked at the health bar slightly above my head. Taking quite a bit of damage a while ago, Hama's health had gone into the red and one more direct hit would spell death for him. Hama brings up his index finger and makes some slight movement in the air to bring up his inventory.

"God damn it!"

The red healing potions that are supposed to be in his inventory are nowhere to be found. Hama used up his remaining six potions trying to survive the never ending barrage of arrows. Underneath his heavy breathing, the silver haired Hama could hear slight footsteps heading towards the tree he is currently taking shelter from.

"She's coming...!"

Hama gulps down his saliva and makes a slight peek from the left side of the trunk but immediately retracts his head as a long oak arrow slips through strands of his hair. With the trunk barely covering his entire body, any other excess movement would invite a shot from that oak bow. Hama still could not believe his luck, encountering a high leveled player killer or PKer for short in the twentieth floor.

To make things worse, his opponent is an assassin class, meaning she is a lot faster than him even with a long bow. Being a warrior class, Hama would have no problem with the assassin if he had the power and speed to take him down but Hama...

"Hahaha! Is running away all you can do? You are making this way too easy for me, warrior!"

Her voice echoes throughout the area sending a shiver down Hama's spine. Sweat drips off from his cheek and his heart pumps as though it is going to explode out of his chest any moment, Hama tightens his sweaty grip onto the two knuckle like weapon in his hands. The overwhelming difference is evident and Hama's death is imminent.

"Its all his fault! Akihiko Kabaya! Whats his deal?! Genius scientist?! He is just a cruel murderer toying with our lives!"

Akihiko Kabaya, the genius creator of both the nerve gear system and Sword Arts Online, has trapped approximately ten thousand players within the virtual floating fortress Aincrad on November 6, 2022. The lives of ten thousand players including Hamano Tsubasa had forever changed since that fateful day.

ooo

Hamano stares silently at the silverish contraption laying on his study desk. The latest Virtual simulation device, Nerve Gear, is capable of linking up all five senses just by sending electronic signals to the brain from its transcievers.

With this, a new era of virtual gaming had been made possible and the time of hand held consoles and monitors have faded into the past.

Being extremely popular with hardcore gamers and addicts all around Japan, the Nerve Gear system had sold out minutes after it had been released into the market. Hamano somehow manages to obtain one of these revolutionary devices.

"Hopefully the afternoon classes that I skipped for this device was actually worth it," Hamano whispered to himself amidst the silence in his bedroom.

Hamano clumsily grabs the helmet like device and brings it over to his bed. Hamano removes his feet from his slippers and lay down on the bed with the Nerve Gear fitting nicely atop his silver hair. For the past half an hour or so, Hamano had dilligently done what most players would ignore on their first purchase of any items; Reading the instruction manual.

The instructions for the Nerve Gear was surprisingly easy to comprehend and it only takes a simple command to load it up, the rest are just details about the different components of the Nerve Gear.

Hamano takes a deep breath and steadies himself for his first FullDive. Having been a closet hardcore gamer for the past year, Sword Art Online was a game that he would not miss for his life. To be able to experience a whole new world at the comfort of his own home was way too tempting.

"Finally with this, I will be able to forget the pain in this world"

Hamano initates the power start of the Nerve Gear system with a press of a button on the corner of the helmet. Light begins to flicker on various parts of the Nerve Gear and a laoding screen projects out in front of him. All thats left is the initiation command and then everything around him will fade away into oblivion.

"Link Start"

ooo

"Its okay, I can do this! Got to focus..."

Positioning himself in front of his adversary, the silver haired warrior brings his two fists up to his face mimicking a boxing stance. A growl shakes the entire clearing as his adversary lifts up its right claw in preparation for a downward slash.

The level ten enraged panda is a moderately easy monster located on the northern plains of the first floor. However, due to its high health points and low item drop rates for a beginner monster, it is shunned by most newbies.

"I am not going to let you do that again!"

Its outstretched claw starts to glow crimson red as the beast charges up for an Area of Effect(AOE) attack, Earth Smash. Hama kicks off from his position and dash towards the beast with his long silver pony tail trailing behind.

"Grooooo!"

The enraged panda smashes the glowing red claw towards Hama and narrowly misses his face. The claw smashes right into the ground behind Hama and shaves off the rocky surface creating a two metre deep depression on the earth. Unable to fully dodge the AOE effect, a tiny bit of health point was scraped off from Hama as he proceeds to his counterattack.

"Haaaa!"

Ignoring the tremor from the blast, Hama thusts his left fist outwards, the knuckle like weapon sharply slides past the giant arm and hits it squarely in the face, sending out a slight shockwave. The Crossjab, a basic sword skill of the knuckle class activates with double the power during an opponent's attack.

"Raaaaaargh!"

The impact sends the two metre tall panda flying and lands some three metre away from Hama. Still panting heavily, Hama watches as the health point of his foe starts to fall into the red. The body of the giant panda shatters like glass and disappears from sight. A pop up on the top left of his player interface proclaims him the winner and the drops are listed below.

"Uwahh, the drop really is bad..."

Lamenting about his bad choice of adversary, Hama slumps onto the trunk of a nearby tree and remove the two knuckles from his fist. Unlike majority of the warriors of the game, Hama does not wield a sword or any of the like, instead he chooses a pair of knuckle weapons which dishes out many attacks at a much faster rate to make up for its low damage output.

The skies in Aincrad starts to darken as nightfall makes its way to this world. Aincrad follows the date and time of Japan meaning it would be around 5pm real time. Hama sighs at the thought of leaving this world since it is about time for his parents to call him down for dinner. To Hamano, Aincrad is like a haven where he could freely travel around the world as the silver warrior, Hama.

Making a few slight movements with his finger, Hama brings up the menu interface and scrolls down to where the log off button is or should have been.

"Eh? I was sure the log out button is here..."

Just to double check, Hama brings up the other menus in hopes of finding the log out button but it is nowhere to be found.

"What is going on? Is this some sort of bug?"

Just then, a loud chiming resonates across the entire level and judging from its direction, the source is probably from the Starting City. Little did the players know, this chime would bring about the biggest change in their lives for the good or the worst.

The next moment, a blue ray of light envelops Hama and he finds himself teleported to the all too familiar central plaza of the Starting City. For the past few hours, Hama had died countless of times and appeared here on these stone pavements. Along with him, similar blue rays of light starts appearing in the central plaza.

ooo

"What are you saying...?"

Hama could not comprehend the next few events that happens after that. The tall shadow clad in a red robe revealing a hollow head starts speaking of absurd things like how they would actually die in game and how they could not even log out of this accursed game. All Hama remembered was the name Akihiko Kayaba and the term...

'Death'

Chaos ensues as soon as the giant figure disappear from the server with players screaming frantically and rushing out of the plaza as soon as they can. Not everyone could accept the fact that they are now permenantly trapped in this game and had absolutely no contact with the 'real' world outside.

Hama eyes widens as he stares at the reflection of the mirror given to him by Akihiko Kabaya.

"You have got to be kidding me...?"

The long silver pony tail and handsome features are replaced by a feminine face with white frails reflects off the mirror back to Hama which he found to be very familiar. The person using the mirror is Hama, yet why is the reflection showing him the face of another person, to be precise, the face of Hamano Tsubasa.

An avatar is used as a replacement in games to represent yourself as a player but if that was to be replaced by the exact same look you have in real life, it was as good as you have completely leapt into the game. Curently of all the games out there, Sword Arts Online would definitely be the last game you would one to be yourself.

ooo

"I don't want to die here, not like this!"

The assailant is close enough such that Hama could hear the metallic sound of a weapon being drawn from its sheathe. At this range, she could easily outspeed him and stab him if she wants to yet it almost seems like she is toying with him by taking her own sweet time.

"Hehe, if only you had obediently hand over your items to me, but not only did you not, you had the audacity to scratch my pretty face..."

Murderous intent seeps through the trunk of the tree which made Hama shudder as he recalls of the face she made when he hastily threw a punch at her without considering the level she was at.

Suddenly, the female assailant jumps back in an attempt to dodge something that flew her way.

"Who is there?!"

A scratch starts to appear on the other side of her face where Hama made his mark. The loud thud sound of an object hitting one of the tree trunks is soon heard.

"Eh, what is going on?"

Seeing as she is distracted, Hama peers over the trunk and spots a figure clad in black approaching them from a forest trail.

To be continued!


Author's notes: Probably my first OC based story. Not to fret, the main characters of SWO will make their appearance. I believe the world of SWO carries lots of potential for fan fiction writers like myself to start off bringing new life to Aincrad.

Enjoy!