The time has finally arrived.
It has been two months since the Sword Art Online beta ended. Summer ended along with it and school has recently started.
But none of that is important. The only thing that matters is that SAO officially releases tomorrow.
As I walk down the hallway of my school, I can't help but notice the excitement in the air. Today is Friday, so when SAO releases tomorrow, all students around the world will be playing it nonstop over the weekend.
My last class just ended and I make my way down the hall and out the entrance. I check to make sure I didn't lose any of my belongings before hopping on my bike.
As I ride through the bustling city, I see advertisements for SAO everywhere, from billboards, to building walls, to TV screens. From what I've heard, preorders for SAO are already in the tens of millions.
I take a deep breath while riding along. I know I'm ready for this. I've spent the past two months doing nothing except obsessing over SAO. Throughout the beta test, I must have taken at least 100 pages of notes in my notebook for me to read and reread ever since.
But simply having those notes written down is useless. I've spent practically every waking second memorizing what I wrote down. Everything from quest order to boss mechanics. By now I've got all of it in my head.
It's funny that I can memorize so much in just two months for SAO, but I suck at memorizing anything for school. If only I could apply my drive towards school, perhaps I could even be valedictorian.
Ha, but why would I want to be valedictorian? I'd much prefer to be the best player in SAO.
And before I know it, I arrive at my house.
I open the front gate and push my bike through. I see that Suguha's bike is there already. She always gets home before me.
"I'm home," I shout as I open the door to my house and take off my shoes. I put on my slippers and walk into the living room. Suguha is lying on the couch looking at her phone.
She looks up, "A friend of mine told me about this game called Sword Art Online. She says it releases tomorrow and is all excited for it. Are you going to be playing it too?"
I'm a little surprised that Suguha, who never bothers with video games, has heard of SAO. "Yeah, it's going to be one of the biggest video game releases of the century."
"Well, don't get too addicted to the game. I'm going to be gone for most of tomorrow. I'll be hanging out at a friend's place. So make sure you take care of yourself and don't forget to eat, alright?"
"Yes ma'am." I start to help towards the stairs.
"Oh yeah," Suguha adds, and I pause to look back. "Mom called. She said she'll be back home on Sunday."
Suguha is referring to my adoptive mother. My real parents died when I was too young to remember anything. Suguha's family were long time friends with my parents, so they were nice enough to adopt me into their family.
Even though I'm sure that I'm a complete failure in their eyes with my poor grades, Suguha and her family have always treated me like I'm a part of their family and have given me a place to call home. For that I will forever be grateful.
I feel bad because I still have trouble treating them as my real family. I'm trying to be better, but it's a struggle for someone as antisocial as me. One day, I want to be able to take responsibility for the family. I want to be proud to be Suguha's older brother. One day.
"Okay, thanks for letting me know," is all I manage to say before I walk up the stairs.
For now, the most pressing matter is tomorrow's launch of SAO. Thankfully I don't have too much homework due Monday. I really want to maximize every second I have this weekend to get as far as I possibly can in SAO.
During the beta, I managed to beat floor 20, but that took over a month. Of course, I was more focused on learning as much as I could about the game rather than speedrunning. But with all that prior experience, I want to beat floor 20 much faster in the official launch.
I turn on my desktop computer and lay back in my fluffy chair. With SAO launching tomorrow morning, tonight is the last night I have to prepare.
As soon as my monitor turns on, the pages upon pages of typed up notes appear right where I left them.
I check the news to see if there is anything new about the game that got announced. Perhaps a last minute reveal, or some new anonymous leaks. Unfortunately, there is no exciting news of that sort.
So it's just me and my notes tonight.
I jump upon hearing a sudden knock on my door.
"Dinner is ready, brother," I hear outside my room.
I look at the time. It's already 7 o'clock. I've just been reading my notes and thinking about SAO this whole time. Time sure flew by fast.
As much as I want to keep preparing for SAO, I know I can't skip this dinner. Once SAO launches, who knows when I'll be able to have another proper meal with Suguha again.
I throw on my jacket and make my way down the stairs. My stomach starts growling even before I reach the dining room. The food smells delicious as usual.
"Wow. . . you prepared a lot of food, Suguha. And it all looks really good."
"Well, I have a feeling that you're going to be playing so much of your video game that you won't have time to cook. So I thought I would make a bit extra so you can just eat whenever you want tomorrow."
"That's very thoughtful. Thank you." It makes me sad how bad I am at being thoughtful. I don't know. Suguha is always thoughtful of me that she makes it look effortless. But I know it's not. I rarely realize situations where I can be thoughtful of her too. This is another social skill that I want to improve upon eventually.
"Well don't just stand there," Suguha gestures for me to sit down, "come eat before it all gets cold."
I pick up my chopsticks and pick up a piece of steamy hot stir fried chicken. I take a bite and its juiciness seeps out, filling my mouth with multiple different spices.
Now this is something you can't get in the virtual world. While the NerveGear can technically send signals of all five senses to the brain, taste is probably the one that is the worst. Only basic flavors like salty or sweet can be simulated with the NerveGear. It can't replicate truly delicious food.
The next morning, I wake up with a jolt to the sound of my alarm. I yawn and stretch out my arms before reaching for my phone.
Oh boy, it's already 9 am?! I must have snoozed my alarm multiple times because I definitely did not plan on waking up so late considering SAO launches at 10 am today.
Well at least I'm not going to miss the launch. I change out of my pajamas as fast as I can and sprint downstairs.
It looks like Suguha has left for her friend's place already. Thankfully, she had made breakfast for me.
I stuff the food into my mouth while checking my phone for any last minute news. It looks like the launch event is going as planned and there won't be any delays.
I run back upstairs and brush my teeth. Everything I do now I'm trying to do as fast as possible. Even though I'm not in game yet, I can already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in.
One last check over my notes. Everything is there. Then I check to make sure I have the notes saved onto the hard drive of my NerveGear. While in game, I won't be able to access the internet via a normal web browser, so the only way I can see my notes while playing is if I save them locally.
I check the time. 9:45 am. Close enough. I can't resist waiting any longer. I lay down on my bed and put my brand new NerveGear on. I power on the helmet.
A white screen pops up in my field of view. I navigate through the menu to the SAO application that I recently pre-installed.
Another screen pops up. It is a countdown to the launch of SAO. At this very moment I feel like a little child sitting there waiting for Christmas presents as I lay there staring at the countdown tick.
10. . . 9. . . 8. . . 7. . . 6. . . 5. . . 4. . . 3. . . 2. . . 1. . . 0!
"Link start!"
Welcome to Sword Art Online. These are the first words that appear in front of me.
Right below that is the character creation screen. There are probably a million different ways a character's appearance can be customized. But I don't care about how I look. The clock has already started, so I must go as fast as possible.
I simply click next, locking in the default character model as my avatar. It is a generic looking man with short black hair. To be honest that's not too far off from what I look like in the real world. Unlike many other MMORPGs on the market, SAO doesn't allow players to play as multiple races, so human is the only available race.
Next is my character name. This one is easy too. Kirito, the same name I've always used for all of my games. It is a combination of my real name, Kirigaya Kazuto.
After a brief loading screen, I finally drop into the world of Sword Art Online.
The sun shines brightly. The sky is blue and clear. Everything feels so very real. I look down and move my arms a bit. Oh yeah, this feels just like it did during the beta.
I look back up with determination in my eyes. There are only a few real player characters near me. Since SAO launches at the same time for everything, most players are still probably in the character creation screen making themselves look good.
I open up my inventory. I am wearing a simple set of cloth armor set with a dull copper sword as my weapon. It is going to be a while before the game introduces me to my off-hand weapon.
"Yui?"
"Welcome back, Kirito."
I smile a little, "I'm glad you still remember me. Unfortunately, I have no time to chit chat right now. Can you disable all tutorials for me?"
"It is done. Good luck and have fun!" Yui cheers before popping out of view.
Not too far in front of me stands a person with an exclamation mark above her head. This is not a real person. This is SAO's first quest-giver NPC character.
As soon as the NPC starts talking, I skip the dialogue, accept the quest, and run past her. I already know exactly what I need to do for these early quests.
I keep running for a short while, and there before me appears the gates to the one and only town of the first floor. This is the Town of Beginnings. Even though it is called a town, I'd say that it is big enough to be called a city. The entirety of the first floor is like one massive tutorial zone. Each quest teaches the player some fundamental mechanic about the game, from buying items to combat.
Because this is a tutorial zone, floor 1 grants everyone a buff while they are on this floor that prevents them from dying. This is a mechanic to help new players from doing something stupid and dying over and over again and getting frustrated.
I run into the large city and head straight for the NPC that the first quest-giver NPC wants me to talk to.
The first couple of quests are all simply running around the town and talking to all the various NPCs, as a way to introduce new players to them.
When I reach the potion master's shop, I buy a health potion with what little money I start with. Even though my quest doesn't tell me to do this, I know that a near future quest will tell me to come back here and buy one. So buying the potion now allows me to skip a second trip here.
The potion master tells me to go say hi to the weaponsmith. So I run to the weaponsmith's shop. Again the quest only wants me to talk to him, but I do more than that.
I open my inventory and take off all of my cloth armor. I sell the entire set of cloth armor to the weaponsmith and get a little bit of money in return.
This money along with my leftover starting money is just enough for me to buy a sharp copper sword from the weaponsmith. Having a weapon that does more damage will help me go faster through the combat sections on floor 1. I can afford to not wear any armor right now because I can't die on floor 1 and mobs do not do a lot of damage anyway.
But even later on, on higher floors with more difficult mobs, I will probably always wear weaker armor than what I'm supposed to because I've practiced killing bosses and avoiding attacks. In other words, I will be able to save money on armor because my raw skill is a layer of defense itself.
Upon completing the quest to talk to the weaponsmith, he gives me a new quest to talk to the butcher.
The butcher is on the other side of town, so I am forced to run the whole way. I am sad that another feature found in many other MMORPGs that is missing from this game is mounts. Mounts would allow me to travel from one place to another faster.
On my way, I run through a large plaza in the middle of the city that is completely empty. I know that this place won't be empty for long. This plaza is known as the central marketplace because players are allowed to set up small shops here to sell their items or services.
Even as players move to higher floors, this floor will always be the most populated and therefore a good place to trade with other players. Since I refuse to do any crafting, I know I'll be back here soon enough to buy gear and crafting services from other players.
I finally reach the butcher and I talk to him. He gives me my first combat quest. He wants me to go to a nearby farm to kill some chickens and bring back the chicken meat.
I travel to the farm and start slashing away at the chickens. Because I have the sharp copper sword equipped, I kill these chickens in one hit. The dull copper sword that the game gives you would require two hits to kill them. While one and two swings doesn't seem like that much of a difference, my agility stat is low so my swings are quite slow.
I quickly kill the 10 chickens that I need and collect their meat to turn in. Even though the meat is all I need for my quest, the chickens also drop bones and feathers, which I pick up as well. These can be sold for a bit of money.
But I'm not done just yet. Right next to the chickens are some sheep. I know very soon a quest is going to tell me to gather some sheep wool, so I just do it now instead.
With my sheep wool collected, I return back to the butcher and hand in my chicken meat. While I'm at his shop, I also sell the chicken bones and feathers to him.
From the butcher shop I run to the tailoring NPC. She tells me that I need some wool. Well it just so happens that I already have some wool. So instead of needing to go back to the farm, I simply talk to her again.
The tailor then explains to me how to process the wool, which I skip since I listened to her during the beta already. Plus did I mention how much I hate crafting?
Unfortunately, this quest is the tutorial for crafting so I can't skip it this time. The tailor points to the spinning wheel and I start processing the wool. Perhaps this process is more interactive in the real world, but in SAO, all I do is stand here watching the wool slowly getting turned into yarn as a progress bar fills up.
There is no way to speed up this process, so I just stand here for multiple minutes waiting. I don't even care that crafting in most MMORPGs is the most efficient way to earn money. If I'm going to spend my precious time standing around waiting for crafting to finish, then I'd rather just not play the game.
After all my wool is finished turning into yarn, I talk to the tailor again and she points me to the sewing station. I don't even think you use a sewing machine to turn yarn into clothes in the real world, but what do I know?
Again I stand there watching the progress bar as my yarn turns into a shirt. The only good news is that I know for a fact that after this tutorial, I'll never need to sew clothing ever again.
The progress bar fills up and my crafting of a shirt is complete. I grab the shirt out of my inventory and throw it at the tailoring NPC. I accept the next quest and leave without letting her finish her sentence.
"Goodbye forever, you stupid game mechanic."
Now, finally, it is time to leave the city walls. I run over to an NPC standing in the middle of a street named The Huntress.
She gives me a quest to hunt boars that are outside the city walls. Before this point, I physically am blocked from leaving the city. I know because I tested this during the beta. But after completing this quest, I become much more free to do as I please.
The Huntress leads the way and I follow. Well, I say follow, but since I know exactly where she is leading me, I just run ahead of her.
As I reach the edge of the city, I look around to see on either side of me buildings that are for sale. These buildings can be bought by players for their own purposes. While technically players can use these buildings as housing, there are much cheaper housing options outside of the city, as well as on higher floors.
Instead, the buildings here will mostly be bought by groups of players to be turned into larger player shops or guild houses. Heck, you can even start your own restaurant if you wanted. This is a roleplaying game after all.
It is pretty cool how endless the possibilities are for these player owned buildings in the most populated city in the game. But for me as a solo player, the price tags of these buildings are quite out of my reach and even if I had enough money, there's not much I'd want one for.
I sit next to the gate of the Town of Beginnings as I wait for The Huntress to catch up to me and unlock the door for me. Even though she looks like she's running, her running speed is slower than my walking speed.
The Huntress opens the city gates and I look out to see a seemingly endless landscape of grass and trees. I can't help but smile. It is beautiful. In the real world, I don't think I've ever gone somewhere so rural to see so much open land.
The boars that I need to kill are at the edge of the woods near the gate. Without waiting for The Huntress again, I charge forward and quickly slay the boars.
One of the boars rams me and I lose some of my health. It's not that I can't dodge the boar, it's that this is simply another tutorial so I'm forced to get hit. The Huntress starts to explain how health works, but I ignore her and immediately open my inventory and chug the health potion that I bought earlier. Doing so shuts her up because at the end of her little rant, she would tell me to go buy a potion and drink it.
Upon killing 10 boars, I finish the quest and talk to The Huntress. She rewards me with my first sword skill, Charging Slash. This skill causes me to dash forward with my sword in front of me, slicing whatever is in my path.
Sword skills, and in the future, off-hand weapon skills, are important aspects of SAO's combat. But unlike many other MMORPGs however, these skills, which some other games would call abilities, are not the most important aspect of combat. In other MMORPGs, sometimes the only thing you do in combat is use skills and abilities.
But not in this game. In SAO, skills always have a specific niche purpose. For example, with the Charging Slash, even though this skill does less damage than simply swinging my sword, the skill gives me additional mobility in the form of a dash.
SAO's combat focuses more on simply swinging your sword around and moving normally. While such a focus would be boring in most other MMORPGs, in SAO, sword swinging and normal movement is fun due to the NerveGear's link to the player's brain. In other words, running around and swinging a sword feels real, which is more interactive and engaging than simply activating a skill and watching your character perform it.
I talk to the Huntress one last time and turn in my quest. She gives me a full set of copper chainmail for my efforts. No other set of armor in this game is as easily obtainable as this one. Since this is the beginning of the game and it is meant to help new players along, it makes sense.
But as I've said before, I don't need armor this early in the game. By the time I actually will need any armor, this copper chainmail set will already be too weak to be useful. So I once again just simply sell the armor at the weaponsmith. Doing so allows me to upgrade my weapon to an iron sword.
As I leave the weaponsmith for the second time, I see a large mob of players running towards me. These must be a bunch of players that recently finished their character creation and are just meeting the weaponsmith for the first time.
It makes me happy that I'm already ahead in progress of so many players, but this is just the beginning. In this Town of Beginnings, no one can really make any mistakes. Even if you have no idea what you're doing, you'll still make it to the next floor, albeit slower. Later on, the game actually ramps up its difficulty, so if you don't know what you're doing, you'll die over and over or you'll lack the damage to move forward. At that point skill and knowledge of the game will matter a lot more.
I look around. There are still a few NPCs in this city that have exclamation marks over their heads, meaning they have quests that I can start. But they are side quests that are not required for continuing my progress.
Sometimes however, certain side quests can give rewards that are good enough to justify completing them. I open my menu and check my notes about floor 1. It seems like the side quests on this floor are all tutorials of various aspects of the game, such as fishing or blacksmithing. These life skills bore me to death just as much as tailoring, even though they are useful.
The way I play, I wait for other people to level up their life skills and then I simply buy whatever I need from them. While it would be cheaper to do the skills such as blacksmithing myself, I'm willing to pay extra in order to not have to waste time leveling up my crafting.
That's everything then. I've completed the minimum requirements for floor 1. All that is left is to defeat the floor 1 boss and advance to the next floor.
The dungeon of floor 1 is not much of a dungeon. Like everything else on this floor, the dungeon is also basically just a tutorial. This dungeon takes place under an abandoned barn far away from the Town of Beginnings.
It takes me forever to run all the way over, but at least I know for a fact no one else has gotten here yet.
The Huntress greets me with an exclamation mark on her head as I approach the abandoned barn.
She starts explaining how dungeons work, so I ignore her as usual and open the hidden latch on the barn floor to reveal the dungeon entrance.
The basement of the barn is much bigger than any barn basement has any right to be. I run through the rooms slicing up every monster in my path.
Because I upgraded to an iron sword when the game expects me to still be using a dull copper sword, I am able to kill everything in this dungeon in one or two swings of my sword.
And before I know it, I've reached the boss room.
I push open a set of basement doors to reveal a goblin that is bigger than the previous monsters in the dungeon.
This boss has no special attacks or tricks. All it does is stand there and swing its mace. I'm not even sure this boss does any damage if you wear the free full copper chainmail set.
I charge forward. Even without any armor on, I know full well that I can still ignore this boss's attacks and simply focus on DPS.
So I slash and hack away until finally the goblin boss's HP reaches zero.
"Yui? How long have I been playing?"
"A little over an hour."
I fall onto the ground and take a deep breath, "Not bad I think."
"It's too soon to lie down, Kirito. You've still got a long journey ahead of you."
I jump back up on my feet, "You're right. My bad, let's finish this floor."
The goblin boss explodes into gold and a bag of loot. I walk over and open the bag.
The loot that this goblin boss drops is not random since this is a tutorial, unlike all future bosses. It drops one of each off-hand weapon type.
I pick up the Goblin Wooden Shield, Goblin Shortstaff, Goblin Gloves, and Goblin Secondary Sword.
Unlike the other weapons and armor that I have encountered up until this point, these off-hand weapons are of a different rarity. Instead of a white border like all my other items, these have a green border in my inventory.
In SAO, there are five tiers of rarity for all items. In order of least to most rare, there is common, uncommon, rare, epic, and legendary. Each rarity has its own color associated with it. Common is gray or white, uncommon is green, rare is blue, epic is purple, and legendary is orange.
The first four rarity tiers are simply stat boosts. If you have two items that are the same type and level, then the one with higher rarity will always be significantly stronger, but also more expensive or harder to obtain.
The final and rarest tier, legendary, is different. Legendary items are so rare that during my entire time playing during the beta, I never got one to drop. Only a few lucky players in the entire beta managed to get a legendary item to drop.
Legendary items are not simple stat boosts compared to their less rare counterparts. Instead, they often have mediocre stats, but they always have a special effect that is entirely unique to that specific legendary item. These unique effects often completely change the way that you play the game.
For example, I know that one of the legendary items that dropped during the beta was called the Guilty Thorn. The Guilty Thorn was a main-hand sword that was entirely dark red with spikes coming off the sides. The name of Guilty Thorn's legendary effect was called Vengeful Strike. When the wielder of this legendary sword strikes an enemy, it applies a debuff to the enemy that causes a portion of damage that the enemy deals to be reflected back to itself.
Guilty Thorn works really well on a tank because tanks take the majority of boss damage. If the tank applies Vengeful Strike to the boss, then a portion of all of the damage the boss deals to the tank will be reflected back. This gives a tank that normally deals no damage a significant boost in damage.
I remember overhearing that the group who used the Guilty Thorn said that the reflected damage is so substantial that they changed the entire build of the tank who wielded Guilty Thorn.
Most sword and shield tanks in SAO try to mitigate or block as much damage as possible through their skills. But since Guilty Thorn's reflected damage is proportional to the damage that the monster deals, in order to maximize the reflected damage, the tank wants to take more damage from the monster. So instead of building the tank to mitigate or block damage, the player who wielded the Guilty Thorn built purely to maximize HP and HP regeneration.
The Guilty Thorn is only one of countless legendary items that exist in the game. Who knows how powerful other legendary items that weren't seen in the beta are?
Legendary items do have one restriction. A player can only use one legendary item at a time.
This means that in order to be as powerful as possible, players will be aiming to equip one legendary item and fill the rest or their weapon and armor slots with epic rarity gear.
Now it's finally time to move to floor 2. I walk towards the teleporter at the opposite end of the boss arena that will teleport me to floor 2.
But before I am able to reach the teleporter for floor 2, a different teleportation spell activates on me automatically. Before I realize what is going on, this new teleporter beams me away.
The teleporter beams me back down and I immediately look around. I realize that I'm back in the central marketplace of the Town of Beginnings. Around me, people are being rapidly teleported to this plaza just like me.
I have no idea what is happening. This is the first time that I've noticed that something is different from the beta. Perhaps this is some secret opening ceremony for the launch of the game?
Everyone else is looking around confused.
"Yui? What is going on?"
Yui frantically flies around me with her tiny avatar. She looks around as if scouting. "To be honest, I have no idea. I was not aware that there would be an event like this."
By now the entire plaza is filling up with players being teleported in. There must be thousands or tens of thousands of people gathered here.
All of a sudden, the sky turns from its natural blue to a dark red color.
A massive cloaked figure appears above the plaza, floating in the air. The figure's face is hidden. The figure is so big that it almost looks like an endgame boss.
Everyone grows quiet, curiously waiting for what will happen next.
"Welcome to Sword Art Online," the large floating figure speaks. The voice sounds eerily familiar to me.
"My name is Akihiko Kayaba. I am the director of this game. I am the creator of this world." Ah, that's why the voice sounded familiar. I got a chance to speak with Kayaba at the very end of the beta test a few months ago.
"I have gathered every single player currently in the game on the Japanese server here to give all of you the single most important message you will ever hear in this game. As some of you have noticed, there is no option to log out of this game. This is not a bug. There is no way to leave this game so easily."
My eyes widen. I open up my own menu and scroll down to where the logout button is supposed to be, where it was during the beta.
It isn't there anymore.
I had been so focused on speeding through this game that I didn't even realize this fact. I look around to see other people starting to panic as well.
But Kayaba simply calmly continued, "This game, this world, is now your one and only reality. The NerveGear that all of you are wearing has the ability to fry your brain in a matter of milliseconds. Your existence in this world has been tied to the real world. If you die in SAO, your NerveGear is programmed to instantly kill you."
My breathing speeds up, out of my control. So not only are we stuck here, but if we die in the game, we die for real?! The thought that dying in a video game will end my very existence frightens me to the core.
"No one from the outside world can help you. So look around you. . ." Then the cloaked figure brings one arm forward, and snaps his fingers.
My vision goes blank for just a second, and when I can see again, I realize that everyone looks different.
I look down at myself. I look slightly different too. I pull up my character information screen that has an image of my character. And instead of seeing my character avatar there, instead I see my real face and my real body.
I look around me. Everyone else must have been turned into their real appearance as well. Not surprisingly, the majority of previously female avatars, especially the really good looking ones, turned into ugly boys.
"These players, these people around you, they will be your only allies. And you'll need them, because the only way for you to leave Sword Art Online alive is to beat the game. All 100 floors. When a player accomplishes that, you will all be freed."
I immediately understood that when he says no one from the outside can help, he meant it. The biggest warning on the box when I opened my NerveGear is that if the NerveGear is forcibly removed while someone is connected, that person will most likely become permanently paralysed or dead.
This happens because the NerveGear sends electrical signals directly to very specific parts of the brain in order to both send sensory information as well as prevent motor functions in the real world. These electrical signals are powerful enough that if they hit the wrong parts of the brain, which is what happens during the process of forcibly removing the helmet, the brain will take severe damage.
I recall reading that this specific danger of NerveGear was the reason why legalizing its use took so many years. The only reason it even became legal was because enough people wanted to be able to experience the NerveGear and pressured politicians.
Currently, all around me, people are yelling and crying. Some are running around, only to realize that invisible barriers have been placed to prevent anyone from leaving the plaza.
"I wish you all the best of luck. And so I welcome you once again, to my world." With that, the cloaked figure vanishes into thin air. The sky turns blue again, and the invisible barriers are lifted.
He didn't give any explanation as to why all of this is happening. Why would he force something so cruel upon us?
I collapse onto my knees and grab my head with both hands. This is worse than my worst nightmares. Everyone here is trapped, our lives are at stake, and we are all at the mercy of a video game.
My head is spinning uncontrollably and all I hear around me is people yelling, screaming, and crying. Everything is so loud that I can't even begin to gather my thoughts.
Out of desperation, I pull up my map and realize that I have already unlocked the teleporter to the floor 2 town since I beat floor 1. Players can always teleport between the towns of different floors for free.
I press the teleporter and I beam myself out of the chaos.
I land in the floor 2 town. My legs are so weak that I fall over as soon as I land. I grab my chest and take many deep breaths, gasping for air.
Finally my body starts to calm down. I look back up. This is a much smaller town than on floor 1. It's quiet here. I am the only player who has beaten floor 1, so I am the only player here. I desperately needed this peace.
I close my eyes and listen to the sound of town NPCs quietly chattering and birds chirping.
I manage to sit up straight. My mind has stopped spinning.
"Yui," I say softly. She pops up in front of me as she always has. "I need you to log me out of this game."
Yui frowns, "I can't do that, unfortunately."
"Stop joking around and log me out already," I whisper desperately.
"I'm sorry, Kirito. I want to help you, but I am incapable of executing that command."
"What are you talking about?" I look into her eyes, confused.
"I may be an AI and I may be an assistant, but I am for the most part disconnected from this game itself. My code lies entirely outside of the game and I am only able to interact with the limited parts of this game that I have been given access to. I don't have the administrative powers to override Kayaba's settings. I'm sorry. I physically can't log you out."
As Yui says this to me, all I can think about is back to that brief conversation I had with Kayaba when I asked him a question at the end of the beta.
I am utterly confused. I am confused about a lot of different things right now.
But there is one piece of information that I can still use from my conversation with Kayaba. He told me something that he made me promise not to tell anyone, not even to Yui. He told me that when SAO launches officially, he will be playing the game as a player just like the rest of us.
Most importantly of all, he told me that his in-game name would be. . .
. . . Heathcliff.