I slowly opened my eyes after waking to the sound of the birds chirping outside my bedroom window. I got up and stretched my arms out in relief. I got up and saw myself in my closet door mirror. I had medium length of unkempt hair and brown eyes. I looked at my arm and saw the large burn mark that I had gotten all those years ago.
*Flashback*
I was 8 years old and in my parents' lab looking at all the cool instruments they had for there work as scientists.
"Hey Wyatt, come here! I have something to show you!" My father called out from the other side of the room. I walked over to see what he was showing me.
"This here container is filled with hydrochloric acid, one of the strongest acids. We use it for many things! Here let me show you something cool!" He then took a sample of hydrochloric acid in a beaker and started to add a substance to it when all of a sudden, everything started to seem to move. My stomach felt really weird as I was trying to figure out what was happening.
I quickly concluded that it was an earthquake. I started to panic and hid under a sturdy looking table.
"Honey! Are you Okay!" My dad yelled across the lab to where my mother was. "Yes! I'm doing fine so far! Is Wyatt okay?" She replied. My dad was about to answer when the earthquake got much worse. A metal beam came crashing down and trapped my dad next to the canister of hydrochloric acid. The Metal beam also struck the hydrochloric acid causing it to spill all over my dad. "AAARRGGHH" He yelled in pain. With the absence of the metal beam holding the roof up the roof collapsed down on us too. I was hit on my head from the table splitting in two from the pressure and everything went black.
I woke up a little bit later and the room was filled with smoke. It seemed something had caught on fire. I tried to get up but found that my leg was caught under a piece of the roof. I did everything I could to get loose but could not seem to be able to. The room was now filled with so much smoke it was very hard to breathe. I laid my body against the ground and lay there in vain.
I then saw my mother come through some of the wreckage and she spoke, "Wyatt!! Are you okay!!" She then proceeded to come over to me and try to help release me from the rubble. I then noticed that there was another beam about to fall on her from the weak structure. However, I was too weak to say anything and just watched in horror as my mother was hit from the beam and started to bleed out. I started to cry in sadness at my moms' death and lost consciousness once again.
When I woke up this time I was in a hospital bed and was aching in extreme pain. I looked down at myself and saw that my arm was blistered and seemed to be burned. I assumed that I was burned from the fire. I then remembered what happened to my mother and father and started to cry again. Eventually, a nurse came into the hospital room and started to treat my wounds more. "I'm so sorry to break this news to you but both of your parents perished in the accident in the lab from the earthquake." I honestly was not that shocked because I already kind of expected this to happen from what I saw happen to them. I started to cry again and eventually cried myself to sleep.
*Flashback end*
I was now fifteen and had moved in with my brother who was a professional at kendo and had his own kendo school! He was much older than me at the age of thirty right now. Today was Saturday and a special day for me. It was the day a much-awaited game called Sword Art Online came out. It was for a new game console called the Nerve Gear which was a new VR game console that completely immersed the user into the game via microwaves sent to the brain toggling and simulating certain senses. Only ten thousand copies were going to be sold the first day and I was determined to get one.
I rushed to the game store and saw there was already a huge line to get one even though the store doesn't open for another 5 hours. I was very excited about this game because it was a game where I would be able to use my actual real-life sword fighting skills to good use. I spend a lot of time at my brothers' kendo school as I think that it is really cool. I have been practicing ever since I moved in with my brother which was for about 7 or 8 years, so I am pretty confident in my fighting skills.
After waiting the 5 hours and more for the actual line I was finally able to get myself a copy of sword art online. I rushed home and was incredibly excited to get on the game. I first went to my brother though to tell him that I would be playing for a while. He said it was fine because he had to teach the class anyway so he wouldn't be needing me for anything.
I ran up to my room and changed into more comfortable clothes. I also ate a small sandwich because I didn't want to get hungry while playing. I turned on the nerve gear and put the sword art online game cartridge in. I then put on the Nerve Gear and said the magic words.
"Link Start!"
I was then transported to the fantastic world of sword art online. After creating my character I was asked for a name. I decided that I would just put my regular name Wyatt because it doesn't really matter that much.
I spawned in a city area called the town of beginnings. I know this because it says it when you enter or spawn in the area. I had already researched the game a lot and knew that I should probably go out to the wilds and level up my skills.
I exited the town and went to a nearby wild boar. I took out the starter sword you spawn with and charged at the boar. My sword then started glowing as the sword skill that I had heard so much about activated. The sword skill slashed through the boar and made a red mark appear on its skin. The health bar went down to about halfway. The boar then charged at me which I sidestepped but got knicked from its tusk bringing my health down to 90%. It gave me a little experience and a couple of items such as a boar tusk and boar skin. I then went to the next boar and repeated the action but without getting hit. I continued this action for a little bit until I leveled up.
A notice appeared stating I had leveled up and can distribute 3 stat points to my stats. I then went to my start screen and my current stats were like this
Agility - 1
Strength - 1
Vitality - 1
Luck - 1
I checked what each stat does and they are as follows.
Agility determines the speed of the player
Strength determines the raw strength of the player and calculates the base damage of their attacks
Vitality Determines the health and defense of the player as well as their stamina and overall fitness.
Luck determines the chance of getting rare drops and other things that happen by chance while also affecting how strong the effect of buffs are.
I decided to put 2 into agility and 1 into luck so my stats were now,
Agility - 3
Strength - 1
Vitality - 1
Luck - 2
I then checked my skills tab to see how my skills leveled up through fighting and they were as follows
Acrobatics - 15/1000
Hiding - 4/1000
Searching - 9/1000
Sneaking - 12/1000
Sprint - 14/1000
Battle healing - 7/1000
One-handed sword - 17/1000
Apparently, there were supposed to be an almost unlimited amount of skills but you need to unlock them by doing something, for example, you would get the cooking skill by cooking for the first time in the game.
I was just about to continue my grinding but saw the time and realized it was getting pretty late. I then went to settings in search of the log out button. Weirdly I couldn't find it. I kept looking around thinking that it may be in some other weird spot for something but I still couldn't find it. I was just about to go back to town to try to get help but I was teleported there instead.
I looked around and saw that everyone was getting teleported here too. Oh! I bet that there is some kind of announcement that we are not supposed to miss so the log out button would not be available until the announcement was over! All of a sudden hexagons appeared all around the plaza and what seemed like blood started leaking from the top. In front of us, a cloaked figure appeared and started speaking.
"Hello! I am Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of this game! Now as some of you may have noticed the logout button has disappeared from your settings tab. This is not a malfunction but a feature of this game. This game will now be a prison to you all which can only be escaped by beating the hundredth-floor boss at the end of the game. You will also no longer respawn in the game and will instead have your brain fried from microwave radiation from the nerve gear if you die in the game. I also have a small present for you all. Look in your inventory. With that, I will say goodbye until the hundredth floor." Everyone looked in their inventory and found a mirror. As everyone took it out they were transformed into there real-world selves. For a second everything was quiet. Then everything exploded into chaos. People were yelling and running all over the place.
After panicking a bit myself I composed myself and decided that I should go to the next town because it would be less populated over there and I would have an easier time farming over there because there would be less competition. I summoned the floor map and set a route for the next town. I quickly left town on my way to the next town. On my way out of the city, I stopped at a small NPC store and sold all of the drops I got from the Boars I farmed earlier. I used the col I got to buy better a better sword. I replaced my shoddy Shortsword with a Storm Forged Longblade. It did almost double the damage as my shoddy sword did 4 damage my new Storm Forged Longblade does 7. I also bought some leather bracers(2 Defense) as well as a leather chest piece(4 Defense) which gave me a total of six defense. I used the rest of my col to buy 5 health potions just in case something happens on the way to the next town.
With my shopping done I continued to the next town where I fought tons of monsters on the way. I ended up leveling up again putting all three of my stat points into agility. Making my stats
Agility - 6
Strength - 1
Vitality - 1
Luck - 2
I would probably need to upgrade my strength next because my sword is near the maximum weight I can use without drastically impeding on my speed.
I reached the next town and was very tired as it was like 2:00 in the morning as it was already pretty late when the announcement was made. I reached the next town called Horunka village. I decided to stay at an inn there because I was super tired.
After paying for a room I lay down on the bed in my room and started thinking about my situation. I need to survive this. I need to so I can see my brother again. With that said I needed sleep and went to bed.