Chapter 2: One Month of Fun
August 1, 2022
Aincrad Beta Floor 1: The Town of Beginnings
So, this is the game that my father envisioned? Incredible! Everything looked and felt so real! Altinator took a good look at his surroundings and his physical appearance. He was standing in front of a fountain of the town's central plaza wearing a red shirt and breastplate along with simple brown pants. On his waist was a basic two-handed sword. This toy won't do me any good right now, but thankfully, I created countless varieties of powerful weapons for later in the game. Altinator unsheathed his sword and started swinging. It was pretty light considering his blade's particular build. Kinda too light, but oh well. He made his way outside into the grassy field where he saw a young man quickly getting used to the sensations of his new body. Altinator watched as the young man slayed a boar with ease turning it into millions of tiny, pixelated pieces before disappearing into thin air.
"Getting the hang of it already, eh?" Altinator called out to the guy who turned to face him.
"Took a while, but nothing I can't handle," the young man answered as he made his way over to Altinator. "Say, you wanna join me in level grinding?"
Altinator smiled as he drew his long blade. "Don't mind if I do." He spotted a boar nearby and made his way over there. The boar charged upon noticing Altinator standing right in front of it. He slashed at the boar using brute strength which was enough to kill the HP bar leaving the boar disintegrated from the game. As Altinator was cutting down boar after boar, the young man stopped for a bit and turned to face him. "By the way, what's your name?"
"It's Altinator, how about yours?" He asked.
"Name's Kirito! Pleasure to meet you Altinator!" Kirito responded.
The two of them returned to their hunt cutting down boar after boar. It was like a contest to see who can kill the most before they get tired. After a good hour, both Kirito and Altinator were worn out and out of breath.
"So how many did you kill?" Kirito gasped as he laid face up on the ground.
Altinator collapsed right next to him laughing. "I completely lost count. How about you?"
"Same," Kirito answered back, closing his eyes for a moment.
It didn't take long for the two to fall asleep after a good long workout. Altinator had barely met Kirito and they seemed like they had known each other since they were children. As more and more beta testers logged in and figured out the controls, Altinator knew that he needed to move on. After napping for nearly an hour, he woke up seeing more testers fighting boars and leveling up. Noticing that Kirito was still asleep, Altinator got down and shook his shoulder.
"Hey bro," Altinator said as he woke Kirito up. "Shall we head over to the next village? There's a quest we can do that can earn us a better weapon than the cheap starter ones that we have right now."
Kirito smiled at Altinator as he replied. "Oh yeah, for sure! I'm always down for information that we can use in the actual game!"
With that said, Kirito and Altinator made their way to a small village called Horunka. Compared to the busy Town of Beginnings, Horunka was a quiet, peaceful, little village with a decent weapon and tool shop for any beginners wanting a head start. A two-story building stood out among the rest of the village. Figuring that this building was the starting location of the quest Altinator talked about, the two entered inside to find a person there greeting the incoming guests. Kirito noticed that the way the person talked was well-rehearsed and scripted. It was an obvious indication that they were talking to an NPC. The NPC offered them some water and led the way to the living room since there was no food at the moment. Kirito, however, noticed that there was also a simmering pot in the fireplace to which he implied that something did not make sense.
Strange. The NPC says that they have no food at the moment but there's something simmering in the pot. Kirito thought to himself. I wonder what's going on. Before Kirito could answer his own question, as if on cue, someone started coughing in the next room the moment Kirito and Altinator received the cup of water.
"Is there something wrong, ma'am?" Kirito asked. "I think I heard some coughing from the other room."
The NPC turned to the two and frowned. "It's my little daughter. She's been sick for quite a while spoke to the doctors concerning her illness and they told me that the only way to cure her is medicine created with nectar from the flower of a Little Nepenthes. Will you please help me? My daughter means the world to me. I cannot live without her!"
Kirito looked at Altinator for a moment who smiled and nodded. "Yes of course," He answered with an empathetic smile. "Is there a place where we can find some of these creatures?"
The NPC beamed and replied. "Over in the west of this village, there is a forest filled with Little Nepenthes. If you can collect the nectar from the creature with a flower on its head, please bring it to me. Please hurry. Time is short for my little daughter and her illness can be fatal."
Altinator and Kirito nodded and headed out the door towards the forest. Along the way, Altinator filled Kirito in on more information about the quest.
"The Flowered Little Nepenthes are a very rare find," Altinator stated. "We should start killing random ones to see if one of them spawns."
Kirito nodded. "How can you say that they're rare?"
"Quests are never easy," Altinator explained. "If the quest demands a specific type of item, it will definitely take a good amount of effort to find it. With that said, the Flowered Little Nepenthes must be a rare creature."
"That makes sense," Kirito commented as they went deeper into the forest. After some time had passed, the two ran into some Little Nepenthes. As expected, there were no flowered ones in the group. Kirito and Altinator drew their swords and after a friendly gesture for competition, they started cutting down creature after creature to the point that they were no longer keeping track of the kill count. After several hours of killing Little Nepenthes, the two still haven't found the rare flowered one. Feeling exhausted from the never-ending hunt, Kirito and Altinator went a little outside of the forest to take a well-deserved nap.
Not even half an hour had passed when Altinator woke up to find a Flowered Little Nepenthes about to take a swipe at them. Unable to wake Kirito up in time, Altinator dodged the attack only to watch it strike Kirito hard several times draining over half his health into the yellow zone nearing the red. Altinator drew his sword and slashed at the Flowered Nepenthes with a clean swipe shattering it into millions of pieces. A notice popped up in front of Altinator showing the rare item needed for the quest. Kirito woke up surprised that he was attacked so badly by that creature.
Shaking his head, Altinator looked over at Kirito with a "you moron" look. "I swear Kirito, you really need to be ready at any time, even when you're sleeping."
Kirito laughed as Altinator made his comment. "Well, it's just a game, silly. Who cares if we end up dying. We can just revive and try again."
"Well yeah, I see your point," Altinator admitted as he rolled his eyes. "But doesn't that take away the fun of the game? We can move around and be in situations where we have to depend only on ourselves to survive."
Kirito nodded as Altinator continued. "I have a feeling that if the game gives us severe consequences when we do die, we will approach how we do things differently don't you think?"
"Yeah, that's definitely true," Kirito agreed. "After all, we are participating in this beta test to see how the game goes, right? There's plenty of noobs that can experience what dying looks like. Maybe we can experience how it feels to advance from one floor to the next."
"That's the spirit Kirito!" Altinator stated with a thumbs up. "By the way, I got the rare item with me. Shall we return to the house?"
"Lead the way, partner!" Kirito answered back with a fist bump.
The two made their way back to the two-story building where the quest had started. The NPC welcomed them back with the rare nectar in hand and hurried over to her room to create that medicine. After a few minutes, she came downstairs and into the room where the daughter was laying and gave her the medicine. The healing process was slow, but it was working, nonetheless.
"The medicine seems to be working," the NPC said. "I believe it will only be a matter of time until my daughter gets better. I humbly thank you for your time. Please accept this family heirloom as a reward."
A notice popped up in front of Altinator revealing the reward known as the Anneal Blade. It was a one-handed sword that was a big improvement from the cheap starter sword they received when they first started the game.
"I will take great care of it," Altinator said as he thanked the NPC for the humble reward.
Kirito and Altinator left the village and made their way over to a town called Tolbana where they both agreed to go their separate ways for quests. They promised to meet up each time to conquer the floor bosses together. Before leaving the village, Altinator gave Kirito the Anneal Blade seeing that he preferred a one-handed sword as his main weapon. The goal of the game was to cover as much ground as possible with all the possible quests to level up and strengthen players. As a game developer and admin, Altinator was able to pinpoint every quest that allowed him to gain all the experience and crucial items he wanted. He also gave Kirito the locations to all the quests that gave him the upper edge. The two used that strategy with every floor they came across until the beta test closed a month later. During the last day of the beta test, Kirito and Altinator bid a temporary farewell, promising to meet up again during the official release of the game. Now that the closed beta was over and money was flowing into his bank account, Josh made sure that between now and the release of the full game, he would make the final preparations of game strategy with his siblings and also focus on his real-life affairs just in case something took a turn for the worst.
