Sword Art Online is the property of Reki Kawahara.

None of these characters belong to me.


First Days

Kibaou


November 6th, 2022, Sunday. The day of the official release of «Sword Art Online». I didn't manage to get into the beta test two months ago. That was fine, I didn't mind waiting another two months, however...

"Kibaou... Kibaou... Tch." Testing out the name, it didn't sound as good as I'd have hoped.

I couldn't get the name I was planning on using, the system said it was already in use. Probably one of those damn beta testers. "So damn frustratin."

Maybe if I can find a name change, then I'll force them to switch names with me. Nothing like that's against the rules. Probably.

But for now... I think I'll try to figure out how to play this game. I tried to log in as quickly as possible to reserve my name, but it didn't work out.

Guess I'll log out and reread that old school instruction manual. What kind of MMORPG doesn't have an in-game tutorial these days, seriously?

Trying to pull down the menu with my right hand, it didn't work. Trying again and again, it still didn't work.

"What the hell? This some sort of bug?"

Tried it with the left hand, still didn't work. Is this happening to just me, or what?

I ran to the nearest person, who happened to be a beautiful woman. Not like there was any shortage of them. "Hey, there's something wrong with my menu. Is there a problem with yours too?"

She tilted her head in confusion. "I don't think so." I watched closely as she held the index and middle fingers of their right hand together and pulled downwards.

So it was like that... Mimicking the correct motion, I pulled down my own menu.

"So what seems to be the problem?"

"Right, right, the problem. Eh, look there's something wrong here..." Fumbling about with the menu, I tried to look for something unusual.

"Right there, at the bottom. It looks like there's a missing option." It was true. The bottommost selection was a pointless panel, it obviously should have held something but was entirely blank.

"What do you mean?"

"Look, let me see your menu for a bit..." I walked behind the woman and peered over her shoulder. The interface was the exact same as mine, but the name in the center was obviously different.

Speaking of which, why the hell is so much of the game in English? We're in Japan, so why couldn't Argus use some damn Japanese? "...How do you pronounce that, Linda? Anyway, just scroll down to the bottom there." I grabbed her hand and pulled the menu towards the bottom.

After shaking off my hand, she took a good look at the missing panel. "You're right. The log out button used to be here, but it seems to be gone now. Maybe they just relocated it..."

Even so, the log out option was missing. We poked and prodded the menu, but there was no sign of it. The two of us ended up looking for others that shared our problem.


Notes: I really need to flesh these out some more, they feel more like the rough drafts of a story.