Thank you for deciding to read What If? Sword Art Online.
This will be my first story, so take it easy on me at first.
My inspiration for writing this story is based from Multiple fan based FanFictions.
If you have any feedback, Ill value every word from it. Can use all the help I can get.
Hope you enjoy reading!
While running through the marketplace at the Town of Beginnings, he wasn't even breaking a sweat. He knew where to go, what to do, yet the game has only been out a few hours. Apparently someone noticed this as well, as he started running after the young kid into a tight alley way.
"Wait up!"
The black haired beta tester stopped and turned around. Noticing a player whose character looks almost like a bandit, with long pinkish hair and a bandana wrapped around his head, leaned over trying to catch his breath.
" You seem to know your way around! You must be a beta tester! I'm Klein by the way."
" I'm Kirito, nice to meet you Klein, and, uhh yeah I'm a beta tester."
Before Kirito can finish his sentence, two guys run up into the alley and stop behind Klein.
"Klein what are you doing? Can't run off on us like that! We still don't know our way around yet."
" My bad, I didn't mean to run off on you guys like that. Oh guys, this is is Kirito, he was a Beta Tester for this game. Kirito, this is Dale, and Dynamm."
As they go around meeting each other, Klein looks back at Kirito.
" Kirito, is it possible you can help teach us a bit about this game, it's our first full dives."
At first, Kirito didn't say anything. He was reluctant to help not two but three players to learn a bit about the game. If it was just Klein, maybe, but two more. After a bit of silence, his mind was made up.
" Yeah of course! Let's go to the fields right outside of town." He waves for them to follow as he guides them to the fields just outside of town.
While in the fields, Klein gets in his stance, raises his sword just over his shoulder, activating the sword skill with the pre motion, with one quick motion he lunges forward slicing the boar in half with his glowing sword as it bursts into crystals and disappear.
After Kirito shows Klein how to use sword skills, that both sat down to watch Dale and Dynamm so they can practice on the freshly spawned Frenzy Boars.
"So kirito, I know it's rude to ask, but how far did you get in the beta? I know it's rude, but I'm curious."
With kirito looking up at the sky as it starts to get dusk out.
" In two months I couldn't even get past floor 8."
As kirito finishes, both Dale and Dynamm stop practicing activating their sword skills and look at the two guys sitting down.
"Damn only floor 8?"
" Yeah, there were only 10 beta testers to make it past floor 7, and I was one of th…"
Before Kirito can finish, he was interrupted by Klein, who had his menu up with a noticeable empty slot.
"...there's...there isn't a logout button.."
Kirito was quick to react as he pulled up the menu to realize Klein was right, the logout button is gone. Both Dale and Dynamm were to busy dealing with the fresh spawns of Frenzy Boars that they didn't have time to open up their menus.
"Have you tried contacting the game master?" Kirito asks.
"Yeah but he's not answering. It has to be a glitch. I bet the server people are running frantic at the moment to fix it."
" I don't know, this game shouldn't have to many problems after a two month beta test."
At that moment all four started to glow a light blue, causing Dynamm and Dale to stop fighting after the last boar.
"Kirito… what's going on?" Dale asks.
"We are being teleported somewhere. Someone forced a teleport."
Bells started to ring as all four were instantly teleported back to the center square in the town of Beginnings. As they all come to their senses, they realize there surrounded by the rest of the 15,000 players who logged onto SAO today.
While Dale and Dynamm start to get nervous and wondering what's going on, Kirito points up in the air at a flashing red box that says *Warning*. Then all of a sudden a red hooded figure about the size of a 10 story building formed in the dusk sky.
"Welcome to Sword Art Online." As the hooded figure opened his arms out.
" My name is Akihiko Kayaba, and I am in control of this world. I'm sure some of you have noticed there is something missing from your main menu, the logout button."
About half the crowd in front of him had open their menus to see for themselves. With the crowd starting to get a bit worried and restless over the fact that there isn't a logout button.
" This isn't a glitch, this is how Sword Art Online was designed to be. You cannot log out from SAO and no one from the outside world can shut off the nerve gear. If anyone plans to do so, the nerve gear has a transmitter inside that will send a microwave signal inside your skull, suddenly frying your brain.
" This is crazy. He is nuts, right? Right kirito?" Klein asks.
"I don't know Klein, the transmitters inside the nerve gear works like a microwave.
"Couldn't someone cut or unplug it from the power source?" Dale spoke up.
" Won't work, the NerveGear has an internal battery."
"This guy is frickin insane." Klein stops as the Game Master continues to talk.
"Despite my warning, the families and friends of some of the players have attempted removing the NerveGear. Ultimately, Sword Art Online now has 150 less players than it did when it started."
Pop up videos of news reports of SAO and NerveGear start to pop up in front of the crowd,as screams start to echo in the center of town, while others start to complain about having to go back to work tomorrow. But everyone starts to quiet down as he starts to talk again.
"There is no longer any way to revive someone within the your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be deleted from the system... forever.
And the NerveGear will simultaneously destroy your brain. There is only one way for a player to escape now, you must clear the game.
Right now, you're gathered on Floor One, the lowest level of Aincrad. If you can get through the dungeon and defeat the boss, you may advance to the next floor. Defeat the boss on Floor 100, and you will clear the game."
"Are you crazy! Not even the beta testers got close to floor 100 in two months, how do you expect us to beat the game!" Klein yells out
The crowd starts to go crazy as they start to put their anger out at the hooded , Kirito, he stayed calm and collected his thoughts. He opened up his menu and started to scroll down his friends list. A smile forms on his face as he reaches the name he was looking for and with that a message has been sent.
Akihiko Kayaba speaks up.
"Before we finish the Tutorial, I have left a gift for everyone in there inventory, please open it up and take a look."
Menus pop up throughout the entire crowd, everyone eager to see the gift they just got from the GM.
"A mirror." Kirito thought to himself.
"Why would he give us a mi…" Klein stops mid sentence as he starts to scream out for kirito as he starts to glow a bright blue again.
But before Kirito can go over to help, he starts to glow a bright blue,followed by Dale and Dynamm, then the entire center square. Almost as if 20,000 flashing cameras went off at an instant.
As the lights starts to subside, kirito looks down at the mirror, noticing he doesn't look like his avatar, startling him for a second before he composes himself.
"Kirito you ok?" Klein puts a hand on his shoulder. Causing Kirito to turn to him.
"Klein is that you?"
"Kirito?"
Both gasp at their actually selves before kirito chuckles a bit at Klein's scruffy face.
"How did he do this?"
" The NerveGear has a high density signal device built inside that can can your face. But the physical properties of the rest of our bodies is a different story." Kirito explains.
"Oh the scan, it makes you touch all over your body! That must be where the physical data comes from." Klein suggests.
"But why would he do this guys? What's the point in all this?" Both Kirito and Klein turn around to Dale and Dynamm before looking back up at Kayaba.
"Right now, you are probably wondering why.
Why would Akihiko Kayaba, developer of Sword Art Online and NerveGear, do this? Ultimately, my goal was a simple one. The reason I created Sword Art Online was to control the fate of a world of my design. This marks the end of the Tutorial and the official launch of Sword Art Online. Good luck to everyone."
With a blink of an eye, Akihiko Kayaba vanishes.
The crowd started to go into panic mode, people screaming, going crazy, and a few fights were breaking out because of the stressed out players.
Kirito decided to take chance and followed his gut. "Come on guys follow me." He started to run through the crowded center square to the center where a small stage was, walking up the stairs followed by Klein, Dale and Dynamm. When kirito reached the top, he heard a loud thud, making him turn and look behind him, seeing Klein has fallen on the stairs, causing him to chuckle as Dale and Dynamm helped Klein up.
Argos POV
With almost the entire crowd in the town square going into panic mode as the GM, Akihiko Kayaba, is explaining the fact that you can't revive anyone after they die, there only seems to be a few people who can control the situation and stay calm in the time of confusion.
While leaning back against a wall around the edge of the center square, a notification pops up in front of her.
" Hmm It's Kii-bou. I wonder what he wants at this hectic time." she talks to herself as she clicks the notification to open up the message.
The message reads: " Meet me at the inn we stayed at in Horunka tonight at around 23:00. Gonna have a ton of work to do after this."
Then all of a sudden Akihiko Kayaba disappears, but she noticed something else. A group of four guys working there way up to the stage, with a young black haired player leading them.
She closes the window with the message to get a better look. "Is that Kii-bou?" She thinks to herself as he walks up the stage with the person behind him tripping on the stairs and falling on his face. "He looks younger, but it still looks like his avatar from the Beta." She continues to think to herself. She continues to watch him as he opens up a menu realizing that he's turning on the speaker so everyone can hear him
"Everyone listen up! I'm Kirito, I'm a beta tester for this game. For us the Tutorial has just started, there's so much everyone needs to know before leaving."
" Shit, it's Kii-bou, I hate being right all the time." She thinks to herself as she gets up off the wall she was leaning against and tries to make her way through the crowd to the stage.
" To Akihiko Kayaba, this is just a game, but to all of us, it's our lives. We need to band together and help each other out to get through this game alive. If he is telling the truth about all this, which I believe he is, we need to follow this one code. *Never let anyone's HP bar hit 0. Some of you might know, but there are skills that you can level up throughout this game like strength and agility. But there's an unlimited amount of them, like fishing, cooking, blacksmithing, and all other types than just fighting skills. To level up these skills, you need to keep practicing and working with the skill to also get XP to level yourself up. Now there are Sword Skills, to activate them you have to do a specific motion for each skill to activate it. Klein here will demonstrate how to activate a sword skill."
With Klein and Dale showing the crowd how to activate sword skills, I reach the stairs to the stage as I start walking up them, but when reaching the top, someone stopped me in my tracks, it was Kirito. He smiled down at me and put his hand out to me to help me up. After helping me up the stage, he walks back to the center of the stage, I followed behind him.
" The only way to clear a floor is to defeat the floor boss in the dungeon, first you have to find the boss room. After floor 1 there will be field bosses that have to be defeated first to be able to enter the labyrinth."
As kirito finished talking, I was turning on the speaker in my interactive menu that I popped open.
" I'm Argo, I'm also a beta tester. I was writing guide books and gave out information for quests and other stuff about the game during the entire beta. We will be giving out guidebooks for free for everyone to use. Every five days we will update it with all the new information we find. Make sure everyone picks up the guide books in the NPC shops before you leave."
"That will conclude the rest of the Tutorial. Be safe everyone!" Kirito says before both of them turned off there most of the crowd applauding them for their actions, but the crowd slowly thins out as they all go on there way through the markets in the town. Everyone walked towards the stairs but stop.
"Kii-bou, how stupid are you for doing that?" I turn to him and look at him with a serious look on my face, but instantly turns into a playful one as I quickly lean in, hugging him tightly. " But it was a very brave thing to do." She pulls away as Klein, Dale and Dynamm walk up to them.
Kirito POV
I hardly ever see this enduring side of Argo, she normal tries to beat us up for information. As she quickly let's go and steps back a step from the hug, Klein and the guys come walking up to us, Klein patting my shoulder." Good stuff out there Kirito, you're a lifesaver to some of these people for that."
"So what's next?" Dale asked.
"You three should probably find the rest of your friends while you can Klein. But first, Argo, this is Klein and his buddies Dale and Dynamm. We met before all this craziness happened today. Guys she's the best Info Broker in the game."
Argo lets out a slight blush before greeting all three of them before she has to say her goodbyes. " Kii-bou I'll see you tonight, I need to get some information before I head over."
" See ya Argo. Klein we are meeting up at an inn in the next town, Horunka. Why don't you go find your friends and meet us there tonight. I have a quest and a few things to do before I head over."
Klein sticks his hand out to me while I do the same, shaking his hand."Thanks for everything you've done Kirito, we will see you in Horunka with the rest of the gang with us." With that, Klein and his two friends disappear into the crowd as Kirito makes his way out of the center square.
'' I will, no, WE will not be defeated by this death game.''