Disclaimer: Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction.

Warnings: Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, and who knows what else.

AN1: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.

Chapter Two: Trial and Error

Thursday, August 15, 2019 9:15 PM
Central Plaza, Hajimari no Machi, First Floor

As soon as Harry appeared in the plaza of Hajimari no Machi, he headed away from the Clock Tower in order to find an out of the way place where he could start figuring out how to actually play the game without getting in the way of the other Players now that he'd explored what he felt must have been every single inch of Hajimari without actually stepping inside any of the buildings. He eventually settled himself in the bushes that ringed the small lake to the south of the plaza and once he'd made himself comfortable, he opened the Player's Menu and began exploring the various pages.

The first page that popped up was the familiar default Menu that had the icon of a person on the left side and a list of Sub-Menus on the right side. After studying the list of Sub-Menus for a minute, Harry tapped them one right after the other to see what would happen. Each of the Sub-Menus would open up another list of words that varied in length and after trying and failing to puzzle them out, he randomly clicked on one to see what would happen. The one he happened to chose just happened to be the Navigation Skill that he'd unlocked on his second night of explorations.

As soon as he clicked on the line, a glowing mess of lines that looked like a weird maze popped up into the air in front of his face just to the right of his head. It took him a few minutes to realize that the strange maze was actually a map of the city; something that excited him when he learned that the glowing yellow dot on the display represented him while the moving green dots represented other Players. He'd eventually discover that red dots denoted Monsters, blue dots denoted NPCs with active Quests (or goods for sale), and gray dots denoted filler NPCs once he learned to read Japanese.

After testing out the map for several minutes (including teaching himself how to zoom in and zoom out so he could see more or less of the map at a time), Harry eagerly continued exploring the Menu. He clicked on a few different things with no visible results before he somehow managed to undress his Avatar by touching the Icon that looked like a human. Letting out a yelp of embarrassment (even though he wasn't actually naked and his Avatar only vaguely resembled his actual self), Harry hurriedly fumbled with the Menu to dress himself once more; his face bright red with mortification.

At least no one else had been around to witness his little blunder or it would have been ten times worse.

Harry stopped exploring that particular section of the Menu once his clothes were back where they belonged. In the other sections that he played around in, he found the option that he thought let him change the language that the Menu was written in and fiddled around with the different options available until he found what he thought at first was English (the letters looked the same) but what he'd later learn was romaji which was just a Romanized way of writing the Japanese language. He'd leave the new 'language' active when he moved onto the next section of the Menu.

He found the Inventory Page next and discovered that he could take things out of his Inventory by clicking on them. That was how he learned one of the two Items in his Inventory was some kind of Potion (a small vial of what looked like pink liquid). He hadn't known what it was so he'd simply put it back. The other Item on the list would turn out to be a rather short sword and he'd quickly put it back into his Inventory without touching it for fear that he'd cut himself like he had the one time that his aunt had tried to have him cut up an onion.

He'd been forbidden from touching the knives after that because he'd gotten blood all over the counter, cutting board, onion, floor, and himself before his aunt had snapped at him to hold his hand over the sink and rinse the blood off before he pressed a bunch of paper towels to the cut to stop the bleeding.

Harry lost interest in his Menu after that and closed it out before he checked the time. Seeing that he still had a good two and a half hours left before he needed to log out, Harry decided that he was going to follow some of the other Players and see where they were going when they left the town. As soon as he began following the first Player he tracked down using the Map that he'd left active, Harry unknowingly unlocked the Equipped Skill known as Tracking and the longer he followed the same Player without being caught, the more Skill Points he earned for that Skill.

Despite not knowing that he'd unlocked another Skill quite by accident, Harry did notice the glowing green footsteps that shimmered into view the moment he'd earned ten Skill Points in Tracking. It didn't take him long to figure out that the tracks were being left behind by the Player he was following. By the time he reached twenty-five Skill Points (about the time he'd tracked his target to the edge of the city), he noticed that his Map now had a green line that connected his yellow dot to the green dot of the Player he'd been tracking.

"That's so cool!" Harry exclaimed to himself as he watched the green dot and green line moving further away from him on the Map before both the line and the dot suddenly disappeared where the Map ended. "Huh? What! Where'd he go!?"

Afraid that he'd lost the other Player somehow, Harry took off running; taking care to follow the now fading green line of footsteps that the Player had left behind. He would soon reach the point at which the Player had disappeared from his Map but Harry was distracted from following his chosen target when he realized that he'd reached the city wall and that he was standing in front of a large archway with an open portcullis looking out onto a dirt road that led into an open field that stretched away as far as the eye could see.

The moment he stepped through the arch and onto the road beyond, the Town Map that had been on display was replaced with a new, incomplete Dungeon Map.

He'd just entered his first Game Dungeon.

Forgetting all about the other Player he'd been tailing, Harry wandered off into the open field in order to explore the new area he'd just walked into. He'd occasionally spot other Players in the distance but rather than spy on them, he'd veer away from them in order to continue his explorations. He'd been wandering for nearly an hour (and steadily expanding the Dungeon Map with each step he took in a new direction) when he came face to face with his first Dungeon Monster; a rather angry looking pig-like creature.

Harry barely had time to squeak out a surprised 'Eep' before the pig-like Monster charged him head on and stomped all over him several times. The next thing Harry knew, the world around him had shattered and he found himself standing in an all black area with a large, flattened hexagon with writing on it. He wasn't sure what the 'sign' was telling him because he couldn't read the words on it but he thought it might have something to do with what had happened to him just before he'd appeared in that place. After glancing around for some clue as to what to do next, Harry tried to open his Menu but instead got a small box with a short sentence on it and two buttons below the unrecognizable line of words.

Unsure of what the buttons were meant to do, Harry hesitantly poked the green one and blinked in surprise when he suddenly found himself standing in the middle of what looked like a large cathedral. The nine year old was both confused about what had just happened and rather in awe of the cavernous room that he'd just appeared inside of. After taking several minutes to explore the room, he found a sign with the words Sosei-sha no Ma etched on it beside the only exit in the room.

Peering nervously out of the open doors, Harry was slightly surprised to find himself looking out at the plaza where he always appeared each time he logged into the game. It was at that point that he realized the room he was standing in must be inside of the large building that sat to the north of the plaza. He hadn't actually known that he could enter the building though (not that he'd wanted to in the first place – it'd looked rather intimidating). Now that he knew Players could set foot in the building, he wondered if he should explore the place or go back to the Dungeon and figure out what it was that had happened to him when that Monster had attacked him.

He was just about to step out into the sunlit plaza (the game running on Tokyo Time rather than London Time), when another Player popped up into the room behind him and barked out an incomprehensible (to Harry), "Chikushou! Dead again! Stupid feathered menaces; why the hell do they always have to attack en mass!?"

The other man then darted right passed Harry without even glancing in the younger boy's direction. Frowning, Harry glanced in the direction the man had dashed off in before he twisted around to study the cathedral he'd appeared inside of. As he watched two more Players popped up in the room and one of them started patting himself down (as if to make certain he was in one piece) while his companion laughed and slapped him on the back. Both of those Players soon followed the first Player as they playfully bickered back and forth with one another in Japanese.

Harry would waste another hour just watching the Players appear inside the cathedral as he tried to figured out why they were sent there. The thing that confused him the most was that some players were constantly coming back to the room while others only appeared once before they disappeared completely. Watching the Players cross the Map after they left the cathedral room showed him that the Players that appeared in the room always vanished back into the Dungeon after leaving the room.

That knowledge made him wonder where he would've ended up if he'd pushed the 'red' button that had appeared below the game sign that had popped up after he'd been run over by the Monster. It wouldn't be until after he started teaching himself how to read Japanese in the school library once school started up again that he would learn that Sosei-sha no Ma was where a player's character would respawn if they 'died' during the game; providing they chose the option that would allow them to continue playing the game rather than the one that had them quitting the game.

In the mean time, it was time for him to log out because he'd already been in the game for nearly three hours.

After he logged out of the game that night, Harry was rather surprised when he received a system message stating that his download was complete when he closed out the game. He didn't remember downloading anything. Following the link provided by the Window that had popped up to inform him of the download's completion, Harry soon opened up a picture of a bunch of bushes. It only took him two minutes to figure out that he must have activated some kind of in-game camera when he'd been playing around with his Menu after he'd recognized the bushes as the ones he'd hidden in while he'd been messing about with his Player Menu.

He got really excited once he realized that he could take pictures while he was in the game. Not only would he be able to take pictures of all the cool things he saw but he could also take pictures of the signs and stuff so he could look up the words on them in order to translate them. He didn't know if he could take pictures of his Menu but he figured he could always find a way to copy the words out in the game and then take a picture of what he'd written instead. That would be so much easier than trying to memorize all of the foreign words like he'd originally been trying to do.

As excited as he was about discovering the in-game camera, what really stuck with him was the mystery of the cathedral room. All the next day, he kept finding himself thinking about the mysterious room and wondering why some Players were sent there. As a result, the next time he logged into Ken no Sekai, he parked himself just inside of Sosei-sha no Ma to count the number of Players that passed through the room for an hour while tracking them through the city on the Map when they left the room in an attempt to figure it out.

After just sitting there for an hour without really learning anything he hadn't already known, Harry gave up on solving that particular mystery in favor of heading back out into the Dungeon so he could do some more exploring.

This time, he actually got close enough to a couple of the other Players to watch them fight off a few of the pig-creatures and he was more than a little surprised to see the Monsters shatter after they were hit a number of times. Not long after those fights, he saw another Player shatter when a couple of huge snake-like creatures attacked her from out of a large clump of grass. That Player would return to that exact same spot less than ten minutes later to shatter all of the snake-things. Harry thought maybe the girl had been sent to the cathedral room after she'd shattered but he couldn't be certain.

Not long after seeing the shattered Player return to the Dungeon, Harry wandered further into the field and once again found himself face to face with one of the pig-creatures. This time, when the creature charged him, he jumped to the side and fumbled his Menu open so he could pull out his sword in order to fight it off like he'd seen the other Players fight off the other pig-creatures. As soon as the sword appeared in the air in front of him, he grabbed by the blade it with both hands in his haste because he could see the Monster turning around to attack him a second time.

There was a strange tugging slash itching sensation on his hands as they grasped hold of the blade and Harry gasped in surprise when he realized he'd just cut his hands open with the blade and he yanked his hands off of the sword and gaped in horror at the crystal filled gashes on his hands. The sword would fall as a result of him letting go and pin his foot to the dirt before something barreled into him from behind and knocked him onto the ground before it stomped all over him until the world around him suddenly shattered without warning once again. He would find himself back in the black space just seconds later and Harry scowled in frustration.

He then carefully inspected his hands and foot but found the injuries he'd expected to find weren't there. He knew he hadn't imagined the strange wounds he'd seen on his hands after he'd grabbed the blade by accident or on his foot from where the sword had struck it but they were no longer there now. He spent another minute poking at his hands before he determinedly poked the green button that he knew would send him back to the cathedral room of the palace. As soon as he materialized in the room, he checked his hands again but still found no evidence of an injury.

After he'd checked his hands, Harry made his way back to the Dungeons in order to try again; there was no way he was going to give up now. Instead of moving deeper into the Dungeon after he left the city, Harry drew his sword back out from his Inventory a second time and carefully grabbed hold of it by the hilt. He then gave it a few experimental waves (like he'd once seen Dudley do with a plastic sword he'd gotten as part of a Halloween costume one year) and promptly cut his right foot off when he tripped over his own feet and lost hold of the sword.

Harry cried out in shock as he watched his severed foot shatter apart like the Monsters that he'd seen the other Players kill had. He then dropped his eyes to the red stump where his foot used to be and stared at it in horror while he ignored the flashing Icon on the bar that hovered above his head and just to one side of his vision and the annoying blare of a warning that accompanied the flashing. If he'd been paying attention, Harry would have seen that bar turn from green to yellow to orange to red before the color disappeared entirely a second before the world around him shattered yet again.

He was still in the process of panicking over the way he'd cut his own foot off when he reappeared in the black room for the third time and he immediately fell back on his butt and clutched at his ankle.

His panic immediately turned to confusion when he found his right foot back where it belonged. Come to think if it, he hadn't felt any pain either time he'd injured himself. That didn't make temporarily loosing his foot any less horrifying in his mind. However, it was rather cool that he was back in one piece despite cutting off his own foot. It helped that there was no pain or blood involved. There wasn't even a scar left behind from where his foot had been severed. Harry flopped back onto the floor and stared up at the black ceiling in relief before he giggled to himself over the way he'd overreacted.

This was a game, after all, and getting injured inside of the game didn't mean that he'd be injured in real life. At least, he hoped it didn't; he'd have to check his foot once he logged out to know for sure though.

Once he calmed down, Harry hurriedly climbed up onto his feet and punched the green button to get back to the palace so that he could head back out to the Dungeon to try again. Over the course of the next forty-five minutes he'd shatter himself in dozens of increasingly embarrassing ways every single time he touched the sword. When it wasn't the sword that sent him to the black space, it was the stupid Monsters that 'killed' him. They'd trample him, gore him with their tusks, bite him with their poisoned fangs, or rip him apart with their claws and beaks.

And in all that time he hadn't once successfully beat even one of the stupid Monsters.

He'd actually log off early that night because he'd been growing frustrated with his repeated failures. He was also more than a little embarrassed because a couple of the other Beta Testers had laughed at him when they'd witnessed some of his stupider 'deaths' in the game. Like when he'd stabbed himself in the back while trying to put his sword in the sheath that was part of his outfit (it took time to pull it out of his Inventory) or when he'd been trying to swing the sword at one of the snake-like creatures only to trip over his feet (again) and stab himself through the stomach when he hit the ground before he was bitten to death by the stupid snake he'd been trying to kill.

The constant set-backs hadn't driven Harry to throw the game out though; they'd just made him all that more determined to muddle through things until he could get it right. What Harry didn't realize was that part of the problem he had with using the sword in the game was psychological though. He'd developed an innate fear of knives after he'd cut himself due to how much blood there'd been that one time he'd cut himself on one of Aunt Petunia's knives and due to the way his aunt had reacted to him cutting himself.

And it had hurt, unlike the injuries that he'd gotten in the game, and part of him still remembered just how much pain his hand had been in at the time.

Harry didn't know that though and the more he struggled with the game sword and continued to cause himself 'injuries' with the blade, the stronger that fear actually grew because he'd come to expect to be 'hurt' every time he picked up a sword now. He was just stubborn enough to ignore that fear while in the game though and when Harry logged back into the game on the seventeenth, he resumed his rather comical attempts to master the sword. The nine year old disguised as an adult in the game would lose count of the number of times he shattered during the three hours he played that night.

He'd spend another hour on the eighteenth repeatedly shattering yet again before he finally grew frustrated enough that he threw the stupid sword away from him only for it to bounce off of a tree and lop his head off when he didn't duck fast enough after it had rebounded in his direction.

The moment he reappeared in the cathedral room after that particularly nasty 'death', Harry was well and truly fed up with the blasted sword. He still refused to throw away the game in a tantrum though and instead, spent a good hour and a half figuring out where and how to sell the stupid piece of junk so he could get himself a proper new sword that actually worked. Unfortunately, he quickly learned that it wasn't the swords that were the problem; it was him. No matter what kind of sword he picked up, he'd inevitably kill himself with it; and that was after spending around eight hours trying.

He'd leave the game before he could resolve the problem.

When he logged in on the twentieth, Harry didn't even bother to give his newest sword another try.

Instead, he spent the entire night scouring the village for an NPC shop that sold something other than swords. It took him almost all three hours to find one due to the fact that the sword was the most popular weapon in the game. He'd then spend a good half an hour debating with himself on which weapon he should try next. He shied away from anything with an obvious blade (such as pikes, lances, and axes) and hemmed and hawed over the less obvious weapons (like the shovels, pitchforks, and clubs).

In another world, a different Harry would take up the shovel to become a trapper because he'd been wielding shovels for a good two years since his aunt had first put him to work in her garden. This Harry shied away from anything that reminded him of his relatives though and he soon turned away from the 'tool' section in order to dig through the dusty merchandise tucked in the back of the store. He'd eventually pull out a weapon that he'd read about in various fables and fairytales nearly as often as he'd read about swords and shields; a Bow.

It was often seen as the weapon of bandits, thieves, and lawless savages but there was one English hero that had made that particular weapon famous and Harry had often read about his exploits since he'd first learned how to read. Those stories had been amongst his favorite books to read.

They'd been exciting stories about an infamous thief who had robbed from the rich and gave to the poor; fantastical legends about a hero who fought against a corrupt government and gave hope to the people.

They were all stories about Robin Hood.

And what little boy hasn't at one time or another dreamt of defeating their world's Sheriff of Nottingham?

Harry was no exception and if he habitually cast his relatives in the role of the 'evil' sheriff, well, he certainly wasn't going to ever admit it to their faces.

As soon as Harry picked up the Bow he felt he'd found the perfect weapon for him. It wasn't too heavy, it didn't have any sharp edges, and it fit quite nicely in his Avatar's hands. He could also see himself firing Arrows with it whereas he hadn't quite been able to picture himself waving about a sword without recalling the various different ways that he'd shattered his Avatar with the stupid blades. Harry promptly purchased the Bow and as many Arrows as he could afford with what money he'd had left after he'd purchased and resold so many different swords.

He wouldn't get a chance to test out his new weapon in the Dungeon that night, he'd spent far too much time trying to find something that wasn't a bladed weapon (the Arrowheads didn't count as they were nothing but carved points and therefore not much different than a sharpened pencil in his mind). Harry didn't mind not getting to play that night all that much though; he'd be back in less than twenty-four hours and he'd be able to test it out then.

He would, in fact, spend all of his time on-line on the evenings of the twenty-first and twenty-second teaching himself how to use his new Bow. On the first night, he'd spent a good chunk of his game time just growing used to handling the Bow, practicing drawing the Bowstring, and figuring out the best way to wear the Quiver that held his Arrows. He also spent a good deal of time trying different ways to carry his new Bow so that it was quick and easy to draw; he didn't want to get shattered by a Monster while trying to take it out of his Inventory like he had with the sword more than once.

Most of his second night of practice was then spent teaching himself how to 'trigger' the standard in-game attacks since there was a certain level of automation involved in using the game's various weapons. (A fact that only made his many 'deaths' by sword all that more embarrassing for the nine year old – and what had made his deaths so entertaining for the other Beta Testers that had witnessed the spectacles. In fact, his comical attempts had unknowingly earned him the nickname of the Clumsy Swordsman or Kenshi no Hebo in Japanese – something that he wouldn't learn until nearly a year later.)

His third attempt at using the Bow that second night would unlock the Equipped Skill titled Archery and each successive attempt would gain him Skill Points that slowly increased his proficiency in that Skill. Successful attempts at activating the two basic shots (a straight shot and an arched shot) that were available with the basic Bow he was using would gain him double the number of Skill Points. Once he could consistently activate the two basic shots, Harry decided he would make another attempt to fight one of the Monsters that populated that first Dungeon the next time he logged in.

As soon as he logged onto Ken no Sekai on the evening of the twenty-third, he quickly made his way to the Dungeon to look for a Monster to shatter (unlocking another Equipped Skill called Searching). He'd find a small group of the pig-like creatures just five minutes after entering the Dungeon; those Monsters were rather common on the First Floor. He crept up as close as he dared to the trio of Monsters (unlocking a fourth Equipped Skill called Sneak) and carefully lined up his first shot on the pig-creature closest to him. Once he thought he was ready, he fired the Arrow.

"Dang it," Harry huffed under his breath when the Arrow fell well short of its target and shattered the moment it hit the ground.

Luckily, none of the Monsters noticed his failed attack and Harry debated on whether he should try using the arched shot (since it covered more distance than the straight shot when it was activated correctly) or if he should move closer and try again. After thinking about it for a minute, he chose to move closer since he thought it might be kind of hard to aim the arched shot properly. Once he made a decision, he cut the distance between himself and the group of Monsters in half before he made a second attempt to hit the closest pig-creature.

This time, he was well within his current Bow's limited range of ten yards and his Arrow struck true. Unfortunately, the amount of damage the Arrow did to the Monster wasn't enough to shatter it. It did, however, damage the pig-creature just enough to make it mad and it somehow seemed to realize exactly where the Arrow had been fired from as the angry Monster charged directly at Harry less than thirty seconds after it had been hit by his Arrow.

"Oh, crud," Harry whined as he fumbled for another Arrow in an attempt to fire a second shot before he was trampled to death by yet another pig-like Monster.

He somehow managed to fire off another shot and it hit the rampaging creature in the chest. When the Monster just kept right on charging towards him, Harry growled under his breath and hurried to load a third Arrow to try again. There was no way that third shot was going to miss due to how close the beast was to Harry when he fired the shot and the thing exploded into shards practically right on top of the nine year old when that third Arrow had hit the Monster in the face. A Notification Window then popped up detailing the rewards that Harry had earned for killing the Monster.

Harry barely even glanced at the little Window (he couldn't actually read anything on it aside from the amount of money he earned, after all) before he closed it out. He then dropped back onto the grass in relief over the fact that he hadn't been run over for the umpteenth time by yet another Monster. He then let out a loud whoop of glee when he realized that he'd successfully won his first Monster fight. A minute later, a sheepish Harry reappeared in Sosei-sha no Ma after the two remaining pig-creatures had attacked him when his cry of joy had caught their attention.

He'd completely forgotten that the pig-like Monster that he'd been targeting hadn't been alone before he'd given into his need to celebrate his first success.

He really hoped none of the other Players had seen him shatter so stupidly. Bad enough they'd seen him shatter himself repeatedly with the stupid sword. He was pretty certain a few of the other Players had followed him around back when he'd still been trying to get the sword attacks to work just so that they could laugh at him when he died. A few might have even been yelling advice to him in hopes that his patheticness with a sword could be cured but because they'd all been yelling that advice in Japanese, he hadn't understood a single word they had shouted at him.

So, it was entirely possible that they had been heckling him at the time instead.

It had certainly sounded like they were heckling him on more than one occasion.

Shaking away the useless thoughts in an effort to stem his embarrassment, Harry checked to make certain that he still had his Bow and Quiver before he headed back out to the Dungeon in order to face another Monster. This time, he made it a point to search out solitary Monsters in order to avoid another embarrassing death. That strategy worked really well for the next several pig-like he faced but finding just one of the snake-like creatures or the buzzard-like bird Monsters was nearly impossible because they always attacked in groups and the stupid snakes were hard to see unless you were right on top of them because they hid in burrows under the tall grasses.

Despite his repeated deaths over the course of his game play that night, Harry enjoyed facing off against the Monsters of the game. Each time he shattered another Monster with his Bow and Arrows, he'd felt like he'd accomplished something and it made him very glad that he hadn't given up when he'd failed to teach himself how to use a sword. In fact, he felt so giddy with his growing number of successes that he renamed the different Monsters he faced after his relatives since he didn't actually know what they were called.

The pig-like ones were Vernons (they were large and quick to anger, just like his uncle), the snake-like ones were Petunias (their loud hisses reminded him of his aunt gossiping with the neighbors), and the bald birds that he thought looked like buzzards were Dudleys (because his cousin always hung out with a mob of boys like the birds).

Harry soon found that it was rather cathartic to shatter horrible Monsters that were named after his relatives. He might not hate his so-called family but that didn't mean he didn't find enjoyment in figuratively 'beating' them each time he 'killed' another one of the Monsters. It also gave him hope that he might one day win his way free of his relatives in real life; that he could grow strong enough to leave them and his life with them forever behind him.

As an added bonus, taking his real life frustration over his treatment at the hands of his relatives out on the Monsters he encountered in the Dungeon earned him Experience and Skill Points that improved his ability to kill the Monsters; both the literal ones in the game and the figurative ones in his head.

Translations: Japanese to English

Chikushou – damn/damn it
Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings
Hebo – bungler, clumsy, greenhorn
Ken no Sekai – Sword Art Online
Kenshi – swordsman
Sosei-sha no Ma – Room of Resurrection (formerly translated as Fukkatsu no Heya on the SAO Wiki)

Game Terminology:

Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play
Dive – short for FullDive
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by Monsters (or other players)
Experience Points – the points earned for each quest completed and each Monster killed
FullDive – the use of technology to fully immerse one's conscience in a virtual reality
NERDLES – Nerve Direct Linkage Environment System (a surgically implanted chip that allows the FullDive system to interface with the brain – the surgically implanted part may or may not be canon as it was something I thought seemed more logical than it just being part of the interface helmet)
NerveGear – equipment created by Kayaba Akihiko (Argus); allows the user to enter FullDive
NPC – Non-Player Character
Player – an in-game character that is 'played' by a human
Player Stats – A list of a player's in game statistics and skills
Ranged Fighter – a warrior class character that fights from a distance
Respawn – a reset of the player's (or Monster's) character after the character has 'died' within the game
SAO – Sword Art Online
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in-game skill
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game

Notes:

Once again, readers of Magic Online (my other HP/SAO crossover) might have noticed a few similarities between this chapter and the first two chapters of the other story (especially at the start of the chapter) but for the most part, this chapter contains all new material written specifically for this story with a borrowed plot line from Magic Online; the plot line in question being Harry's multiple character deaths via sword during his first few attempts at playing the game. That was something that was only referenced and never 'seen' in Magic Online though – something I partially fixed here.

Items – Just a quick note about Items in the story/game; due to the nature of the FullDive Game Environment, I have chosen to make all Items far more realistic than they are in most actual computerized RPGs. I.E.: all Bows will require bowstrings, all Fishing Rods will require Fishing Line (hooks are attached to the line instead of being sold separately), and all appliances and electric tools (Lamps, Stoves, Blenders) will require batteries or fuel (Coal or Electricity).

My reasoning for treating the Items in such a way was to increase the 'realness' of the game and to allow enhancements or upgrades to certain weapons or tools by changing out a replaceable Item on the weapon/tool. An example would be increasing the power of a Bow by using a sturdier Bowstring or being able to successfully hook larger/heavier fish with a heavier duty Fishing Line.

To increase the realism, I've also made it so that changing out the 'replaceable' or 'disposable' Items before they break from 'wear and tear' will prolong or increase the durability (or lifespan) of an Item while allowing for them to break while in use will decrease or reduce an Item's durability. So, you can equate the use of replaceable Items on various tools and equipment as self-maintenance for Items (similar to taking a Sword to a Blacksmith for maintenance and repair).

Harry's Game Data/Stats (At Time of First Kill):

Category: Human Player
Caste: Warrior
Class: Ranged Fighter
Type: Bowman
Level: 01
Hit Points: 350/350
Cor: 48
Attributes: DEF [05], ATK [10], STR [05], AGI [10], STM [05], & LCK [10]
Unspent Stat Points: [20]

Main Equipment:

Basic Bow – Flimsy Bow accurate up to 10 yards
Basic Arrows – Low quality Arrows; pine shafts w/ sharpened points and fletched with pigeon feathers
Old Boots – simple boots that make lots of noise
Basic Clothes – clothing with no special capabilities

Equipped Skills: 04 Slots
(Basic 1-250 pts, Advanced 251-500 pts, Proficient 501-750 pts, Expert 751-999 pts, & Master 1000 pts)

Archery – 0038
Searching – 0025
Sneak – 0010
Tracking – 0103

Unarmed Skills: 2 Slots

Navigation – 0078
EMPTY

AN: Okay, I'm certain I mentioned it in the long AN at the start of the previous chapter but just in case I didn't or in the even that you chose to ignore the boring author's note at the start of the first chapter, I'll say it again here; all spoken Japanese will be written in italics while all spoken English will be written in standard form to distinguish between the two. Any other language used will be denoted in the text of the story and will potentially be placed in italics or in underlined italics depending on whether or not any spoken Japanese is referenced in the chapter or scene in question. I will also make references to a character switching between English and Japanese from time to time to help keep up with any switches (mostly because I needed to keep it straight in my head).

Okay, I think that pretty much covers everything I needed to say regarding the story since the other points I had were covered in the notes at the end of the chapter (see above). I certainly hope you enjoyed the chapter as much as I enjoyed writing (I think I had a little too much fun making Harry the clumsy swordsman). Chapter three will be up next weekend. I'm also still working with the next chapters on An Epic Adventure, Magic Online, and the Unbound Soul in the hopes of updating one of those stories soon. Just keep an eye on my author's page for potential updates in my posting schedule since I log my progress on individual chapters separately under the story names.

Lastly, I'd like to thank everyone who read and reviewed the first chapter AND everyone who added this story to their Favorites and Alerts list! You guys are awesome! (Hands out leftover candy canes and Christmas chocolates). ~ Jenn