The century of 21st,

The game industry had never been blooming like this before. 70% of the world's population experienced at least one kind of video or computer games in their lives. And half of it were the people who played them every day. After the birth of the first version of virtual reality (VR) device back in 2016, game developers had found their new path to create more realistic games. Inspired by the Japanese Light Novel series Sword Art Online (SAO) published in 2012, which later on got itself two successful 2 series of anime, some game companies in Japan had their first attempt to recreate the SAO world in the late twenties. Those actions laid the foundation for VR games later on.

Finally, on 16th June 2030, SEED Corp. announced the release date of their biggest and most promising project among the whole game industry.

New Arising Online. For short, NAO.

SEED Corp. was found on 2068 by Professor Kimura Shio, who was well-known in both IT and neurology. He was the pioneer in the development of virtual sensual reality technology, which allowed the closest game to SAO to be released. Currently, players could experience the game just like they were living in a second world. Beginning with the first version of VR device, which allowed only the vision to be used, now all of the five senses of a human being were operated and led the player to the brand new world. After one month of closed beta for 500 lucky beta testers to be the first ones who experienced the game, the open beta for the game would be released on 26th June 2070. Unfortunately, Japan was the only place which game chips and VR devices were sold. And the players had to be within Japanese territory to be connected to the main server. Therefore, Japanese residents were going to watch the rest of the world getting jealous of them.

To get prepare for the open beta, the game chips and VR devices were delivered to every electronic and game stores around the countries, with the limited number of 5000 since SEED Corp. only operated one server during the open beta. They wanted to control the number of participants to avoid server crash. If the game proved to be successful, they would open more servers in the future. Because of that reasons, the game and device were even rarer than diamond. One day before the officially day of selling, thousands of people got in lines for miles, waiting in front of the stores. And on that day, 10000 pack of chip and device were sold after 5 minutes.

Actually, the accurate number of packs was 9500, because the 500 beta testers received their free pack as a payment of their cooperation during the closed beta. And among of the testers, unexpectedly the promising legacy of a doctor family, Sonoda Umi, new graduated doctor student, decided to award herself for graduating her study at the age of 22. She was invited to be one of the beta testers by a friend of hers, who were one of the staff in SEED Corp. Her family was against her playing games but since she moved away to live on her own when she went to university, she didn't care less about how her family thought about her hobby. The short months of testing New Arising, she had become addicted to the new world and she couldn't be more eager to spend a few years later to enjoy her new life.

26th June 2030, 8 A.M.

Umi made sure to take a day off today. She wanted to be the first one to be in the world of New Arising, to feel the fresh air and the green landscape of an ancient land. Of course her parents, which were the director of her current hospital, weren't so happy about their daughter asking for a day off after a week starting to work in the hospital. But as stubborn as she was, Umi would get what she wanted. She woke up at seven, cleaning herself and finishing all the necessary chores. Having her breakfast while waiting for the G time of the release, her cell phone vibrated violently, moving toward to the edge of the table slowly. Bringing the egg sandwich up to her mouth with her right hand, she caught the phone with her left hand right after it fell off the table in the middle air, still keeping her eyes on the morning newspaper. Put the phone of her left ear, she said "Moshi Moshi" with a mouth full of food. And of course the caller couldn't be pleased by that.

"Sonoda. Please finish your food before talking. Lucky for you that it is me or you will lose your image already." A voice of an annoyed woman could be heard from the speaker.

"I know it is you so that's why I picked up. No one knows this number of mine besides you, Eli." Answering with a bored tone, Umi continuing her breakfast, ignoring a loud sigh from her friend.

"At least show some respect to your best friend. So are you going to NAO today?"

"What else did I ditch work for? Do you really need to ask that?"

"Figured. I just called to tell you that our reports during closed beta have become the beginner's guides. Just like in SAO. How cool is that!"

"OK lower your voice Eli. No matter how good the novel is, I still don't want us to get stuck in that game forever and can never resuscitate once your HP reaches 0."

"Don't be so pessimistic. It's just a novel. It's not going to be exactly the same. Not 100% no matter what. You're comparing the reality with a fiction."

"Yeah yeah. You will lose your job if you don't protect your company anyway." Umi replied with a teasy voice.

"Shush. Anyway, let's meet at the cherry tree in front of Sera village after you have logged in. Most of the new players will focus on their beginner quests so we can start off with farming levers outside the village."

"You're an evil and sly staff, Eli."

"Well I am a beta tester and a normal player, just like you, Umi-chan. I don't have any authorities to operate this game anyway. I'm playing fair and square."

"OK OK got it. See you in 10 minutes."

"Better not to be late, Sonoda-san."

Finish the call, Umi made sure to turn off both of her phones. She did not want any disturbances from her work or her social life. She wanted to at least enjoy playing game for the whole day. Looking up to the clock on the wall, she quickly finished off the last piece of her sandwich and folded the newspaper. Putting the dish into the dish washer, she drank the cup of coffee she made a while ago in one gulp and then place it into the machine also. Pressing a few button to make it work, Umi went around the house to check that she locked all the doors so no thieves could break in while she was on drive. After everything, she rushed to her room and unpacked the box that she received from Eli few days ago. It was the VR device, NeuVice, she got for free from being the beta tester. The device didn't change much from it first version, except that it was lighter and looked neater. It looked just like a pair of sunglasses, except there was a ring of carbon surrounding the back of the head when wearing to get the full signals from the neurons of the brain. Observing it for a while, Umi smiled to compliment the designer of the device. Comparing to the first version of NerveGear in SAO, it looked way better. Plug in the charger for the device, the young doctor input the chip of the game to the bridge of the glasses, which allowed her to connect to the server. She turned on the device for the final examination that it worked well. Everything seemed to be ready. She put the device over her head, with the black glasses covered her eyes; and then freely let her body landed on the soft comfy bed behind her.

The clock on the glasses showed "8:59". One minute to go. The girl was excited. A small grin on her lips told everything.

3.

2.

1.

9:00

"Link on!"

The command to log into the server was said softly, clearing Umi's mind completely. Her vision now was all white for a second before the logo of SEED Corp. popped up. Next, a window opened, asking for her ID and password. By thinking, she could input all the require information just like typing on a computer. After accepting her ID and password, the window disappeared. A new one showed up along with a message.

"There is a previous character that is was created in closed beta. Do you want to use this character?"

Under the question was the name of her character, the one that she had been using during her time in closed beta.

"Umi (F)"

Without hesitation, she accepted and then, the final message was delivered to her.

"Welcome back to New Arising"

Then, her vision went black.

One blink. Two blinks. Three blinks.

The surroundings were slowly getting clearer. An old mud road in the front, a clear blue sky above, and a pair of hands worn in black fingerless gloves when she looked down. Moving her fingered a little bit to make sure that everything worked well, she gripped her hands, smiling to herself and cheered softly.

"Finally, I'm back."

Along with that, she could here many cheers from other players, who were just logged in like hers. Soon, the small village was crowded by thousands of players wearing in newbie uniforms. But they didn't stand there for long. Some players immediately went to the non-playable characters (NPCs) around the village to do the beginner's quests, while some others took time to look around their new world and all of the functions on the menu board, with a help of the beginner's guide in their storages. Of course, as a beta tester, Umi knew exactly what to do without the guide, since she helped to write that guide anyway. Remembering the promise with Eli, Umi quickly went to the Elder of the village to finish the first quest.

The Elder stood in the middle of the village, surrounding by many other players. It was pretty hard for Umi to get through but she managed somehow after five minutes going through the sea of bodies to greet the Elder. The Elder happily welcome her to their village and granted her a beginner's sword along with experience points (EXP) enough for her to gain one level, and 50 coins. After that, she quickly ran to the opposite direction of the rest of the players, heading to the big cherry tree outside of the village.

Only about 2 minutes later, she found a female character leaning on the trunk of the tree, without anyone else around the area. Everyone always thought that finishing beginner's quests would help them to leveling quicker than farming in the monster field. But thanks to that, the field was empty. Umi and Eli would have enough time to clear all of the monster in the field before they could restore and other players came. By that time, both of them would have gained at least 10 levels already. And with completing the beginner's quests, they would be at level 20 after an hour.

Thinking that, Umi picked up her speed and ran toward her friend, which took no time to notice her. The other female character straight up her back and waved at the newcomer.

"Oi! You're late, Umi-chan"

"Shut up, Elichi." Umi replied once she got closer to Eli. "You don't use your old character anymore huh, Eternal Feather-san?"

"Stop it! Don't remind me of that name please! It was a mistake that I thought about an anime character when I was creating that character, OK?" The person in front of Umi blushed a little. Seeing the blush on her cheeks, Umi silently complimented the realistic components of this game.

Eli cleaned her throat to calm herself and then took a good look at her friend. The character of Umi, Umi, was a young female about 1m60 tall, having a pair of blue crystal eyes and shoulder-length crimson hair. She was wearing the female newbie uniform with a leather armor in front of her chest, a white sleeveless shirt worn inside, red miniskirt, a pair of leather boots and wrist protections.

"And you used your old character from the closed beta. You don't want to change your appearance? 'Cause this character's face is way too similar to your real face. Not to mention you're using your real name."

"Isn't that good then? I'll enjoy this game more realistic. And besides, no one would think it was my real name since I wrote it in romanji." Umi shrugged her shoulders. "But look at you, cheater. You made your character one-head taller than me when you're only 3 centimeters taller in real life. And yet your hair is purple, you pervert."

"What?! How can I be a pervert when my hair is purple?"

"You said that by yourself. Only perverts love purple. And I know how much you're crazy over purple things."

"Er… I… Damn it! Stop it Umi!" That earned some soft giggles from Umi.

Just like Umi said, Eli had made herself a female character with long purple hair and dark blue eyes. Her face was more matured and sharper than Umi's face since Eli wanted to make herself look tough. And her clothes was similar to Umi's except that her skirt was black and her shirt was green.

"Anyway, enough of the chit chat. Let's do some farming before someone comes here."

"OK. Since we don't have enough skill points (SP) to upgrade the party ability yet. Let's do a separate leveling from here."

"Sounds good. Let's meet again here when we finish the whole area." Umi said eagerly while withdrawing her sword from the cover on her waist.

"I'll make sure to gain more EXP than you, Umi."

"We will see about that, Elichi."

Both of then exchanged a challenging grin and then went to different directions. Umi went to the south and she met a horde of slime. They were the most common monster in any MMORPG games, and also the easiest one to kill. Therefore, without mercy, Umi swung her sword to kill any slime on her way. The sword went through it each time, but the health point (HP) bar above each slime was getting shorter and shorter by each attack. Until it reached 0, the slime exploded. And the remaining pieces of the slimes disappear a second later, only leaving behind one or two coins as a reward of killing them. Umi kept attacking the slimes, gaining more and more EXP through time. When she wanted to one-hit-one-kill a slime, she got into the pose, her sword shined a little and automatically her body moved on its own, making a neat strike at the slime and quickly broke it into pieces. It was how to use a skill move. Not like a normal computer game where you press buttons to activate skills, you had to remember the pose or initial movements of each skill in order to use them in time. It was harder but helped the player to experience more. That was how Umi felt. When she got hit, her HP bar went down a little but she felt a little tingling since the pain transaction in this game was only 5%, which meant she only felt 5% of the actual pain she would receive in real time during the same accident in the game. It helped to have a realistic but also relaxing experience during the game.

An hour later, Umi finally cleared the whole area. Her level now was 11 and she was checking her bag for the items and money she received from the slimes and a pack of rabbits nearby. At the same time, the purple hair girl ran toward her. It seemed that the girl also just finished cleaning her side.

"Hey Umi! Still good?"

"Yeah. I got about 9 levels. This area only has weak monsters so I didn't get many EXP though." Umi replied while checking. With a few more swipe on the menu screen in front of her, she closed it and then turned to look at her friend. "So how about y…. Ahhhh! What the heck happened to you, Elichi?! You look like a mess!"

"Ahahaha….." Eli scratched her head with a weak laugh. Her armor was partly torn along with her skirt. And Umi could clearly see her HP bar was red and almost empty. "I got bored after killing all the small monster, and accidentally encountered a boss so I tried to kill it."

"Even though this is only a game but still, you're so reckless!" Umi was obviously not pleased to see her friend's condition. "So did you kill it?"

"Yeah I did. That's why I'm level 17 now." Eli replied.

"By yourself?"

"Yep. By myself." The girl raised her chin up proudly.

Umi sighed heavily. She opened her menu screen again, skipping to her bag and press on the potions. Immediately, a small red bottle appear in her hand. She tossed it to Eli, who caught it thankfully.

"Drink up before a slime swallows you from nowhere."

"Hehe. Thanks Umi." Eli answered with a smile and then drank the liquid from the bottle. Soon later, her HP bar was refilled. "The boss was actually a big slime so it wasn't that hard to kill though. I was running out of potion and with only a novice sword, it was a little bit hard. The reward wasn't that good anyway. Only 100 coins and a large gem to sell later. But the EXP is worth it, even though I almost had to walk from the village back to you with some loss in EXP."

Umi furrowed her eyebrows at the final sentence. Her face became darker and the atmosphere tense up. Noticing the sudden silence from Umi, whom usually would retort her silly actions or jokes immediately, the smile on the purple hair girl's face faded away. She quickly turned to her friend. The girl now was having her head low, letting her bang cover half of her face.

"Oi… Umi… Umi-chan… What's wrong?"

"… Eli, do you remember what I told you this morning?" Without making eye contact with her friend, Umi replied with a low voice.

"We talked about many things this morning. Which one are you talking about?" Eli raised her voice a little bit. But it seemed that Umi didn't want to answer her question. Eli had to search in her memory for a while. Umi was acting strangely, and somehow it scared her a little. Could it be because that she defeated the boss without telling her? They used to make a party and hunt bosses together during the closed beta. But Umi was a nice girl with a big heart, she couldn't be that narrow-minded. Then what was it that Umi wanted her to remember. This morning? We were talking about the game, and what we would do when we logged in, and then about her favourite light novel…

Her favorite novel… SAO?

"SAO?... You mean that?" Eli raised a question, receiving a nod from Umi. "What about it? Don't tell me you still have that thought? I told you already that SAO is just a novel. This game may borrow the idea of it but doesn't mean NAO IS SAO!"

This time, Umi rose her head to look at Eli. Straightforward and serious. "Why don't you check it yourself?"

A cold question sent Eli chill all over her body. Hastily, she ran her hand in the air to open the menu and quickly find the option to log out.

"I will prove you, Umi."

The setting list opened up.

"That there is no way…"

Sounds, lights, brightness, account…

"… It would happen…"

Eli trailed off at the end of her sentence. Her shock eyes gazed at the blank space on the screen. The blank that was supposed to be where the log out button was. In the closed beta, there was a log out button to shut down the device completely. It was the only way to turn off the game by themselves besides an interruption from the outsiders. The worst case that Umi mentioned actually happened. They were stuck in the game.

"You've got to be kidding me. This can't happen." Eli said in shock, holding her head, try to refuse the reality.

"It's not… While I'm waiting for you, I was checking the menu screen and everything for a bug or an error, and found out that there was no log out button at all. If this is a bug, I will be grateful. But…"

A moment of silence.

"Eli, look around you. Do you see anything strange?"

Following her friend's words, Eli slowly observed her surroundings. It was empty. There were only her and Umi, and some monsters just respawned. No one else was here.

"… Where is everyone?" Eli quietly said, enough for the girl next to her to hear.

"Exactly. It has been an hour and yet no one comes here to farm. The beginner's quests take less than half an hour to finish them all. Unless something holds them back after they finish the quests."

"But the final quest is in the capital of NAO, Ravenia. And it is a non-PK and safe zone. What can happen to them?"

"… You know about SAO better than me, Eli. I'm sure you know the answer already." Umi replied, giving Eli a sad look.

The purple hair girl went even more shocked than before. She placed a hand over her lips and stared down at the ground. It was the habit of herself when she was thinking about something. After a brief moment, the expression on Eli's face became more relaxing, but still serious because of the situation. She turned to look at Umi firmly. Freaking out was the least thing they should not do. No matter what, both of them were the beta testers. They had experiences that no one else had about this world. And on top of that, Eli was among the staff who created this world.

"Let's not jump into conclusion just yet. Maybe it's just a bug or something. We can check the village and the capital to see if others are having the same problem with us."

"I hope you're right." Giving a weak smile, hope was everything Umi could do.

After a long walk from the farming field, passing the starting village in Regalia, the open world in NAO, the girls noticed on the bulletin board of the village, there was a big news about a big event for newbies in Ravenia. That explained why no people came to the farming field after their beginner's quests. Without wasting more time, Umi and Eli headed to the capital, where from afar, they could hear the noise of the crowd from the arena in the middle of the capital.

Another 15 minutes passed, they mingled with the crowd as all people were waiting anxiously. Most of them had found out about the missing of the log-out button. The rest just followed the majority. From the news, the Game Master (GM) had an announcement for them. Therefore, they were hoping that it was about the solution for the current issue.

Standing in a corner of the arena, Umi and Eli looked at each other nervously as the big clock in the middle of the place rang, notifying it was 12.00 at noon. As promising, the GM appeared in the middle of the crowd, floating in the middle of the air with a black manteaux that covering his whole body. No one could see his face. But his voice was clear as the morning sun.

"Greetings the new civilians of Regalia. Welcome to New Arising Online. As the Game Master, I'm so grateful to see my world coming alive." His voice was deep and mysterious, as his appearance already gave that first expression. "Let's skip all the formalities as I know there are many of you have found out about an error in the system, which is no log-out button can be found in the menu board."

When the GM mentioned about the issue, the crowded went from being silent to angrily complaining about the error. The GM did not change his calm attitude.

"And here, I will confirm one thing. That is not an error."

A moment of silence. Shock. Confusion.

"There are some beta testers here can guarantee you that in the beta version, there was a log-out button. However, in this official version, the log-out button disappears on purpose. To make it short, you are all trapped in here until the game is cleared."

After that, the crowd busted in anger. They shouted, screamed for another explanation as they could not accept the fact that they trapped in a virtual world from the moment they stepped into it. Some of them cried for help. Some of them tried to mimic the action of taking off the NeuVice but it did not work, when their real bodies were still laying motionlessly on their beds.

Behind the angry crowd, Umi was shocked when she learned that her biggest fear had come true. No words escaped from her dry throat. She felt her hand soaked in sweats. And yet Eli just made it worse as she held her friend's hand, trying to calm themselves. Slowly, Umi turned to look at the girl besides her, who were obviously couldn't be less concern about the situation than herself.

"Eli… Do you know anything about this?"

"I'm sorry but… no. I'm in the same shoes with you now."

Then, several screens popped up around the GM, interrupting their conversation. With a louder voice, the GM continued giving his speech.

"You may now notice that there are several missing people after my earlier announcement. Those hasty people will receive nothing but death. These screens are taken from the local televisions and you can tell I am not joking around. If you try to disconnect the NeuVice, your brain will get burned from the electrical adapter inside the device resulting an instant death. Your families and probably the whole nation has been informed about this situation to prevent unfortunate deaths. But it seemed that there were some people didn't take my words seriously."

The crowd went silent in horror as they couldn't believe what was happening in front of their eyes. News about random deaths on their own beds with the presence of the NeuVice. Announcement of the government about the trapped 10,000 people in New Arising Online. Everything just added more into the reality that all of them had stuck in a game for a really long time. Continuing the nightmare, the GM was giving more information that he hadn't told yet.

"Also, be aware. Some of you may have read Sword Art Online, the novel about a visual game that published several years ago. My advice, recall everything you can remember from that novel because it will be your life preserver. This world is based on Aincrad after all. And of course, that would mean if your HP go down to zero for any reasons, both your life here and in real life will end. No resuscitation."

Chills ran down Umi's spine. If this GM was following SAO then she knew what was going to happen next.

"Finally, to wrap everything up, this is my welcoming present for all of the remaining players. Please check your inventory now."

Like soldiers, all of the players immediately opened their menu to search for the aforementioned gift in their inventory. When Umi and Eli opened theirs, they found a new item, which was named 'The mirror of truth'. They both looked at each other, concern and worry shown clearly in their eyes. They knew what it was but they couldn't do anything to avoid it. They both touched the name of the item and a hand mirror appeared on their hand. Slowly, they brought the object closer to their faces until they could see their reflections. And just like others, their whole bodied shone brightly.

After a few moments, the light faded away. Umi slowly opened her eyes. She did not feel bad or sick. But she knew this was not a game anymore as she saw her face in the mirror. No more blue eyes and crimson hair. Only the face of Sonoda Umi with those amber orbs and long marine hair remained. Exactly the same thing happened in SAO where the players revealed their true identities in the game. In a blink of eyes, the mirror broke into data particles. Like ringing a bell, Umi quickly turned to her friend, who had become a beauty with blonde ponytail and clear blue crystal eyes, looking back at her in disbelief.

"Umi… You… Your face…"

"Yes I know, Eli… I can see your face also."

Eli quickly touched over her own body, checking for any abnormal. But only to find her own disappointment.

"So it is real then. Our real face and measurements can't be hidden. We're going to die in real life as the same time in here. We have become a new series of SAO. Why is this happening?!"

The blonde exclaimed in frustration while hiding her face into her hands. Even she was a staff, a person who took part in the creation of this world, she still couldn't accept the fact that she might die one day in this world without seeing her family again.

Family…

"Family… My sister… Oh my God! Umi!" Suddenly, Eli snapped out of her desperate moment as she remembered something important. She did not care how she startle her friend with her sudden call. She grabbed the blunette by her shoulders and said in terrify. "My sister! Arisa is also playing NAO!"

"Wait… What? Isn't she supposed to be at school right now?"

"She pretended to be sick and stayed at home with me. Our parents are off to work today until evening so we linked together."

"Then why didn't tell me about her? Or bring her along with us?"

"She told me she wanted to play with her best friend at school so she let me go off with you alone. Gosh! Umi, we need to find her quickly!"

"Ok calm down, Eli. Since we all have our real faces now, it won't be that hard to find he-…"

"But before everything starts…" To her horror, the GM interrupted her words with more and more terrors. "I find it less interesting if everything was exactly the same in SAO. Therefore, I have modified the whole 100 floors of Regalia a little bit. From floor 1 to 5, all of the monsters will be degraded to fit with the players' levels. However, the gates connecting the floors remain unchanged, which means you still needs to fight the boss if you want to get from here to the next floor. Furthermore, all of the players will be teleported randomly to these 5 floors. So…"

"What…"

Before Umi could react…

"Good luck all."

A ring of a warp appeared around each player, including Umi and Eli. Screams and yells filled the air. No one could cancel the teleporting as they would be warped to a random place. Umi tried to run away but her feet couldn't move as she could be the paralyzed symbol showed next to her HP bar, same with Eli's. She looked at Eli desperately when she knew they would be separated. The blonde knew what she was thinking and how she felt. To answer those, she smiled gently, reassuring that they would be fine.

"Don't worry Umi. I will find you and Arisa. Then we will get out of this together."

As the time of teleporting was running out, Umi only managed to give Eli few words of comfort until both of them disappeared into air.

"Be safe, Eli."

The new chapter of their lives began.

Author's note: Hey guys. This is my first fiction about muse even though I have been a Love Liver for years. Please read and review as I want to improve the story itself and give your more pleasure time while reading this fiction of mine. It's been 6 years since I have written any stories or fictions so my narration might be crappy at the moment. Please excuse me for that as I will try to improve it ASAP.

Thank you for reading!