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 Four: The Trap That Set Him Free
Saturday, November 02, 2019 9:15 AM
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey
A despondent Harry petulantly scowled at the breakfast dishes that he was washing while he tried not to grow upset about the fact that the full version of SAO had not yet shown up and the game was due to go live in just four days. He'd known it would take a while for the shipment to get from Japan to England but it had been nearly two weeks now and the software still hadn't arrived. Or, at least, he didn't think it had; it was possible that it had and his aunt had either put it in Dudley's room or given it to Uncle Vernon. It was also possible that his uncle had returned it to get his money back.
Harry thought it was far more likely that Uncle Vernon hadn't ordered it in the first place due to the fact that neither of his relatives had mentioned the game once in the past three months let alone the last two weeks. Nor had they actually realized that Dudley's computer had been thrown out yet; Dudley hadn't told them and Aunt Petunia never paid attention to all of the junk in either of Dudley's rooms while Uncle Vernon never set foot inside either room even when Dudley was home – hence the reason why Harry could get away with taking things out of Dudley's playroom.
Harry just hoped that Dudley wasn't planning to accuse Harry of stealing the computer when he came home for winter break. Actually, now that he thought about it, Harry wouldn't be all that surprised if that was exactly what his cousin planned to do. Blaming it on Harry months after the fact (and during a time when Dudley himself hadn't even been home to 'protect' his things) would see Harry punished harshly for the 'lost' computer and gaming equipment as well as see Dudley getting away with throwing out the costly gift.
Along with a high possibly that his cousin would be 'rewarded' with replacements to make up for the 'loss'.
As he scraped the dried egg out of the skillet that his aunt had used to cook breakfast in, Harry considered how he would go about protecting himself from Dudley's potential accusation. Well, if the full version of SAO never arrived, he could easily hide the computer in Dudley's playroom under all of the clutter in there. That would at least prevent him from being caught red-handed with the thing. If by some miracle the software did arrive, then Harry would have to figure out a way to implicate someone other than himself in the 'theft' of the device.
Harry really hoped the software did show up even if he knew it would be better for him if it didn't because then there'd be no reason for him to hold onto the computer any longer.
He desperately wanted to return to Aincrad though; the game world had quickly become home to him and there was no place he'd rather be than Aincrad. He longed for the freedom he had inside of the game and for the life he'd made for himself inside of the virtual reality game; a life that was nothing at all like his real life. In the game, he was plain ole Joe the Archer; a reclusive explorer and hunter that wandered the world by choice. In the game, there was no one ordering him around, no one telling him he was a waste of space, and no one blaming him for every little thing that went wrong.
Harry was pulled out of his introspection by the sound of the mail flap squeaking open and he felt a sharp surge of hope well up inside of him when he heard the sound of a heavier than normal package hit the floor. There was a good chance that the software he'd been waiting for all this time had finally arrived. Better yet, his aunt and uncle were far too caught up in watching the morning news in the dining room and finishing their breakfast to realize the post had arrived. Harry quickly set the pan he'd been washing back in the soapy water and dried off his hands before he dashed to the front door.
It took but a couple of seconds for him to collect everything from the floor and his hands fairly shook when he saw the Argus Company logo combined with the achingly familiar SAO logo on the thick, plastic wrapped cardboard packet that had been shoved through the slot. Hardly daring to breathe, his heart pounding like crazy, Harry hurried to his cupboard under the stairs and shoved the package beneath his mattress before he hurried to the dining room to place the rest of the mail on the table beside his uncle.
He then scampered back into the kitchen to finish washing the dishes so that he could start on the rest of his chores; the sooner he got said chores finished, the sooner he could open the game to check it out. Even knowing he'd have to wait at least another four days before he could play the game didn't dampen his newfound excitement as he diligently rinsed the pan he'd just finished washing while making certain he'd gotten all of the egg off of the sides of the pan. Biting his lip as he dried the skillet and put it back where it belonged, Harry tried to ignore the giddiness he now felt.
He also did his best to ignore the fear that lurked just beneath his growing excitement; there was still a chance that he could be caught with either the game disk or the computer, after all. Despite the fear of being punished, Harry found it nearly impossible to keep his excitement bottled up inside him but it was something he had to force himself to do lest the Dursleys got suspicious of his behavior and searched his cupboard. Still, every so often he couldn't help the huge grin that would spread across his face for a few seconds before he could wipe it from his face.
Only four more days until he could go home.
That night, as soon as his aunt and uncle were in bed, Harry installed the new full version of the SAO software directly over the Beta Version rather than uninstalling the Beta Version first like the directions instructed him to do. It was a small mistake that was made because he hadn't actually bothered translating the installation directions in the first place since he already knew how to install software. The fact that he'd unintentionally selected a manual install instead of the automatic install meant that the install program didn't remove it for him during the process.
Harry never really noticed that he'd made a mistake though; he was far too caught up in his excitement over being able to return to Aincrad in just a few short days.
Wednesday, November 06, 2019 4:52 AM
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey
Harry was vibrating with suppressed excitement.
He'd been awake for almost two hours and he'd spent most of that time counting down the minutes until the Live Version of SAO went online. He'd tried burning some of that time by playing the other games he'd grown quite familiar with after the Beta Test had ended but he hadn't been able to concentrate on any of them and so had given up trying. Even the cutesy little Japanese game that he'd checked out of Little Whinging's Public Library to improve his Japanese had only managed to distract him for a whopping eleven minutes and he liked that game!
After the first thirty minutes had passed, Harry had initiated a Window's Cleanup followed by a Disk Defrag of the main drive in order to kill some time. Harry would then split his time between making certain the computer didn't slip into sleep mode and flipping through the game play guide that had come with the new software; the nine year old mostly just looking at the pictures rather than translating the instructions. By the time both system programs had finished running, Harry had killed another hour and he couldn't help but grumble under his breath about how slowly time was passing.
Feeling rather antsy, Harry attempted to waste another few minutes by checking through the folder he'd set up for all of the stuff he intended to upload into his Inventory in the game once he logged in. Since he didn't know if he'd be able to keep everything he'd had on him when the Beta Test had ended, he needed to be able to upload a copy of his translations of the in-game signs and Menus, the Japanese to English Dictionary, and the list of common phrases (and their English equivalents) if he lost his other copies.
He even had copies of an English Dictionary, an English Thesaurus, a Japanese Thesaurus, and quick reference guides for all four of the Japanese alphabets that he'd downloaded from the internet after the Beta Test had ended. He'd also collected a bunch of stuff for the subjects he was currently taking in school but he didn't expect to upload them to the game; those were mostly just programs and electronic worksheets that he'd collected to give him something to do while he'd been waiting for the full version of SAO to go live.
Once he'd finished with that, all that was really left for him to do was wait for five o'clock to roll around so that he could turn his purloined NerveGear on, load the game, and Dive back into the world he saw as his true home. The next time he glanced at the clock, he was pleased to note that there were less than eight minutes left until the designated launch time and Harry had to suppress a squeal of excitement lest he wake up his aunt and uncle. The only thing that made Harry unhappy was the fact that the launch time was set so close to the time he had to be up for the day and therefore wouldn't get more than an hour, maybe an hour and a half of game time before he had to get ready for school.
Aside from the limited time he'd have to play, the fact that the game's opening day was on a school day wasn't that big of a deal for him; he had been playing games (including the SAO Beta) around his school hours for months.
What Harry didn't know was that Kayaba Akihiko had purposefully picked a date and time when most underage gamers (especially those that were under the age of fifteen) would be in school and therefore less likely to be amongst the ten thousand players logging on in the first two or three hours of the game. He'd also created a filter that would block those accounts registered to birthdates that fell within a certain time frame; though that wouldn't stop those logging in under someone else's account or those that added a year or ten to their actual age from slipping through the cracks.
Harry was just such a person; not only should he not have had time to log in that morning but his account should have been blocked because his birthdate fell within the range that Kayaba had blocked. Harry had added a full decade to his birthdate though because his Avatar looked like an adult and because he was also too young to have a NERDLES. He might be willing to risk the Dursleys' wrath to rescue Dudley's computer or court expulsion with some of the stunts he pulled at school (like doctoring his grades) but that didn't mean he wanted to be caught breaking the law.
Even if those regulations didn't count as laws, he'd still be in trouble because he was too young to have had the device implanted. He was sure they wouldn't throw him in jail either way because he was underage but that didn't mean that they wouldn't punish the Dursleys for him having NERDLES because they were his guardians and they would have technically had to have given permission for him to get one. And if that happened, he'd be in big trouble with his aunt and uncle for causing trouble for them.
Something he wished to avoid at all costs; if only because his life with them was miserable enough without giving them an actual reason to hate him on top of the issues they already had with his existence.
Shoving the unimportant thoughts out of his mind, Harry checked his watch again; only five more minutes left now.
Harry felt his cheeks start to ache due to the wide grin he was sporting as he clicked on the desktop shortcut to the game in order to let the software start loading while his entire being filled with anticipation. He briefly wondered if he would run into any of the other Beta Testers he'd seen around during the seven weeks he'd spent exploring the Beta Version of the game during the short amount of time he had that morning to play before he shrugged and promptly turned his thoughts back to the actual game. It really didn't matter if he ran into any of them or not.
It wasn't like he'd made friends with any of the other testers. Or even talked to them for that matter.
That brief bit of internal speculation had taken up another two minutes of time and Harry was pleased to see that there was now less than three minutes remaining before he could go home. Eager to start and not wishing to lose even a single second of the limited time he had to play that morning, he turned on the NerveGear and checked to make certain everything else was set (testing the cables and connectors for loose connections) before he put the helmet on and twisted around to lay down on his mattress; taking the time to get himself comfortable.
Taking a deep breath, he watched the clock on virtual display of the helmet's screen slowly count down the final seconds before he whispered, "Link start."
An explosion of colors rushed before his eyes and then the Never Gear was syncing the newly installed game software to his brain; testing each of his five senses and confirming his previous calibration settings. In less than two minutes, he had been logged into the game with an open System Window in front of him. It took him several precious seconds to determine that he had a choice between making a New Avatar and importing his Beta Avatar. After a brief debate, he chose to use his Beta Avatar rather than start over from scratch with a new one since it would take too long to set it up.
Once he'd made his selection, the welcome screen flashed at him for all of two seconds before an array of blue filled his vision as he was transported into the game where he soon found himself standing in the middle of a familiar stone plaza in the middle of Hajimari no Machi wearing his character's default outfit of brown pants, a brown and tan long sleeve shirt, leather boots, and a leather chest plate.
Harry let out a whoop of sheer joy the moment his eyes fell on the Koku Tetsu Kyuu that sat just north of the plaza; he was finally home.
Dozens of people began appearing on all sides in flashes of blue light and Harry quickly slipped out of the plaza in order to avoid getting trampled on by the any of the other nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety-nine players that had purchased the game. He was leisurely walking through one of the many market places that littered the city when he was nearly run over by a vaguely familiar black haired man wearing brown pants, long sleeved dark blue shirt, and leather armor that he briefly recalled seeing pass through Sosei-sha no Ma once or twice during the Beta Test.
He'd never actually spoken to the other guy though and felt no need to chase after him and introduce himself to the man now; especially not after he'd noticed another man with long pinkish-red hair wearing dark brown pants, a white shirt, and leather armor chasing after the guy he'd thought was a Beta Tester. Harry didn't need any trouble when he'd only just arrived and had so little time to reacquaint himself with the world that had become his home before he had to log out and get ready for school.
Putting the two men out of his mind, Harry headed down to the lake that sat to the south of the Central Plaza and found an out of the way bench where he wouldn't be bothered by other players and took the time to scan through his Menu and check his Stats. He was a little sad to learn that his character had been reset to level one (from level twenty) and that his Skill Points had all been dropped down to two hundred points each but he didn't stay down for long too. It would have been far worse if he'd chosen to create a new Avatar.
By importing his Beta Avatar, he'd at least got to keep his final Skill set; it would've been a real pain to have to unlock each of those Skills again. What Harry didn't realize was that his acquired Skills should have been completely erased and the number of open Skill Slots available limited to six (four Equipped and two Unarmed) until he unlocked more through the game. This little discrepancy would be just one of the many 'conflicts' that his installation of the Full Version of SAO over the Beta Version had introduced to his Character and Menu.
He was also happy to discover that he had a Basic Bow and Basic Arrows in his Inventory; though he pouted over the loss of his Oak Longbow and Oak Arrows that he'd acquired during the second to last week of the Beta Test. Still, it could have been worse; he might have had to waste time and money finding a Bow for sale like he had to when he first started visiting the Dungeons during the Beta Test due to the mistake that he'd made in selecting his starting weapon during his initial account set up.
Since he'd eliminated that mistake prior to importing his Beta Avatar, he didn't have to deal with it this time around. Instead, he could splurge a bit and purchase a couple of Healing Potions and a Teleport Crystal or two to carry with him in case he lost track of time while out in the nearby Dungeon (where log out functions were sometimes limited) and didn't have time to walk back to a Safe Zone to log out.
Pulling up the Town Map (which he was pleased to note still showed the entire city – yet another aspect of his character that should have been reset but hadn't been), he scanned the listing of shops in the area to find the nearest one that sold Potions and Crystals. Once he found what he was looking for, he hurried there in the hopes of beating the other Players that intended to stock up using what money they had; Harry wrongly thinking that everyone in this version of the game started with the same amount of money that he'd noticed he had on hand.
Unbeknownst to Harry, a portion of the money that he'd had on hand at the end of the Beta Test had been transferred to his character's Money Vault and added to the starting amount that all new characters received when he'd imported his character. Even if he had known that he'd ended up with too much money for some reason, he would not have realized that the discrepancy had been caused by his installation mistake since his knowledge of computer programming and software conflicts caused by coding redundancies and errors was non-existent.
He was just a nine year old, after all.
One with above average intelligence and a high level of maturity, true, but still just a nine year old.
He was in luck; the Non-Player Character (NPC) running the store he'd entered had no other customers and still had what looked to be a full Inventory of basic merchandise. Since there was no line, Harry hurried forward to initiate the sale so that he could buy what he needed and get out of there in the shortest amount of time possible.
While Harry was shelling out several thousand Cor (the currency used in SAO) within the game; his magic was reacting to Harry's immersion into the virtual reality environment (much as it had that first night he'd used the system). This time it drew upon the complex blood wards that had been set around the Dursley's home (for both his protection and theirs) and twisted them in response to Harry's mental proclamation that the fictional world he'd just entered was his one true home (the Beta Version had only been a temporary preview of the game and therefore had not truly been seen as home; not like the full version was in Harry's mind).
It started by encasing his entire body in a protective shield that would prevent anyone from touching him and, more importantly, would prevent anyone from removing the NerveGear from his head. Next, his magic expanded outwards while the blood wards tied to the house sent tendrils of magic inwards to lock his cupboard from both the inside and the outside; effectively locking Harry into his closet and sealing the door shut. As the magic moved through the house, it acted upon the deepest wishes of both Harry and the adult Dursleys (specifically, his aunt); to be free of each other.
To that end, the magic removed all traces of Harry from the Dursleys' lives.
It even went so far as to completely remove any memories they had of Harry from the seven and a half years that he'd lived under their roof. When it finished, there was no evidence anywhere in the house or in the minds of its current occupants that Harry had ever existed (bar the hidden cupboard holding his unresponsive body); even his cupboard door had disappeared despite the fact that his cupboard still existed. The protective magics would remain active just long enough to wipe the mind of Mrs. Figg when she walked passed the house looking for Harry two days later before going dormant until the next time they were needed (which would be when Dudley returned home for the Winter Break).
In the game, Harry (completely unaware of the changes taking place in the real world) placed his new purchases in his Inventory, thanked the NPC Clerk, and exited the store. It was time for him to find out just how much of his previous Skills remained. He took a moment to set the alarm built into the Player Menu to go off at two-fifteen (or six-fifteen back in Surrey and the real world; the game clock set to Tokyo Time) so he wouldn't be late logging out. He then checked his map of the city again, in order to gain his bearings, before he headed towards the nearest exit so that he could enter the nearest Dungeon where he could scare up a couple of Monsters to test his reduced Archery Skill on.
Stepping out onto the grasslands that surrounded Hajimari no Machi, Harry let a wide grin stretch across his face as his green eyes lit up in delight over the familiar and much loved sight of rolling hills and endless fields that filled his vision.
Letting out a whoop of excitement, Harry trotted further away from town in order to avoid those Players that were hunting Monsters near the walls of Hajimari. He couldn't help but laugh out loud with each step he took as he drank in the familiar fields of Aincrad. After a couple hundred yards, he passed by the two men he'd seen running through the town earlier and swerved wide to avoid getting in their way as they fought a small group of Frenzy Boars (the Monsters that he'd once called Vernons before he'd learned their proper names).
Thirty minutes after leaving the town, Harry found a trio of Frenzy Boars that were grazing undisturbed and he prepared his first shot as he used Sneak to creep up on the Monsters. Once he was close enough, he fired an Arrow at the first Boar and hurriedly prepared another Arrow that he fired off ten seconds after the first one and that was immediately followed by a third. Before the Frenzy Boar had even finished turning in the direction after the first hit, the Monster had shattered in death.
The other two Frenzy Boars soon joined the first in death and Harry let out another whoop of glee over a successful hunt that hadn't seen him injured or killed in the process before he closed the three Reward Windows that had automatically opened after each death. Satisfied that he wasn't too rusty with his Bow and Arrows despite the drop in Skill Points and the long (to him) absence from the game, Harry took a leisurely route back to the city just so that he could drink in the magnificence that was Aincrad.
Each time he crossed paths with another Monster, he'd make short work of it unless another Player had already engaged the Monster. He also took care to swing wide around any Players that he happened to spot in the fields; he was far too intent on enjoying the familiar freedom of the wide open spaces that made up his home to socialize with strangers. There was also the fact that he still didn't speak or understand all that much Japanese because he'd just barely started learning the language two months earlier and therefore couldn't really communicate with them unless they spoke English.
Not that he was in any hurry to find out since he had no real experience interacting with other people outside of his relatives (who wanted nothing to do with him anyway), Mrs. Figg (who was happiest when she was talking at him), and the occasional teacher at school (who rarely ever noticed that he even existed unless he approached them first).
Thinking about his slowly improving grasp of Japanese reminded Harry that he hadn't seen the copy of his translations and the dictionary in his Inventory when he'd looked earlier. He immediately sat down where he was (after checking for nearby Monsters) and waded through the Menu to the upload function and promptly initiated the copy function to replace them. While he waited for the rather large files to be uploaded, Harry dropped back on the ground and lazily watched what he thought looked like a flock of small red dragons soaring through the air above him.
The first file had barely just finished uploading when Harry's Menu Alarm sounded; a loud reminder that he had to log out of the game and get ready for school back in the real world.
Harry let out a loud groan in response to the sound; he did not want to return to his wretched life with the Dursleys.
Grumbling under his breath about slave drivers and whiney whales disguised as pigs in suits, Harry shut off the alarm before he checked the progress of his uploads and wrinkled his nose in annoyance when he noticed the second file was still being copied from the PC. He reluctantly canceled the rest of the files in the queue and then sat up to keep an eye on both the upload progress of the second file (which happened to be the Japanese to English Dictionary) and the in-game clock. He didn't want to cancel the upload but he'd have to if it wasn't done by the time he absolutely had to log out.
Harry let out a soft sigh when the upload was completed less than ten minutes later and he closed out the Upload Page of his Menu in order to shift to the Player Settings Page where the log out button was located so that he could start getting ready for school. Harry frowned as he ran his finger down the available options and found the log out option missing. A quick check of his Map ensured that he hadn't accidentally stopped in a restricted area where the log out function would be blocked. Even if it had been blocked, the button would still be there; it would just be grayed out.
Knowing that his grasp of kanji wasn't all that good (though it was far better than it had been when he'd first joined the game during the Beta Test – thanks to the additional Japanese lessons that he'd taken after the Beta Test had ended), Harry tapped the Account Settings at the top of that Menu Page and toggled the written characters from kanji to romaji since the Romanized letters were much easier for him to muddle through. Once that was done, he quickly returned to the Main Settings Menu and tried to log out a second time; only when the last page in question opened he found that the log out option was still not there.
A brief check of the time showed that he still had ten minutes before his aunt would be downstairs to wake him up in order to help her with breakfast. Unfortunately, he had no idea how he was going to fix the missing button in little time he had remaining and had no clue as to who he could contact to fix it for him since he'd never had a need to deal with a Game Master (GM) in order to report a bug during the Beta Test. Even if he had known how to contact a GM, there was the little issue of him not knowing enough Japanese (written or spoken) to communicate through the game system.
Unable to think of what to do, Harry soon began to panic; he now only had three more minutes left until his aunt would expect him to join her in the kitchen in order to help her make breakfast for Uncle Vernon (minding the bacon and beans while she sliced tomatoes, fried the eggs, and made the toast).
If he didn't get up first, she would bang on the cupboard door to wake him up and when he didn't answer her, she'd open the door to yell at him and the moment she saw him wearing the NerveGear, she'd wrongly assume that he'd stolen Dudley's gaming equipment from his room (instead of out of the trash). As soon as she jumped to the conclusion that he was a thief, she'd screech for his uncle and they'd disconnect him from the game in order to yell at him before they punished him for daring to 'steal' Dudley's precious computer (the child completely unaware that his magic had taken measures to protect him from just such a situation).
Terror gripped the nine year old and he began hyperventilating as the mere thought of being discovered as a thief (which he sort of was since he hadn't had permission to take any of the things he'd snuck out of Dudley's playroom throughout the years) sent his imagination into overtime as his mind tortured him with the possible punishments that Uncle Vernon might come up with for daring to take Dudley's things. If he didn't log out right this minute, he was going to be in big, big trouble and he'd never again have the opportunity to return to the world that had become his home.
Simulated tears began pouring down his face as his personal clock registered two-thirty-two and he still was unable to log out. Pressing his hands over his mouth, stared at the game Menu without seeing it as realization set in; his relatives were going to be so angry with him. Hell, they might even be upset enough that they'd send him to a juvenile detention center for underage criminals or one of those horrible orphanages that his uncle ranted about all the time. Any way he looked at it, getting caught red-handed by his aunt and uncle would be ten times worse than being accused by Dudley.
Ten minutes later, when the log out option still hadn't been restored, Harry let out a scream of pure frustration.
Numbness set in when three o'clock (or seven o'clock London Time) rolled around and he was still trapped within the game. Confusion soon followed as it slowly dawned on him that no one had forcefully removed the NerveGear from his head in order to force him to return to reality despite the fact that another half an hour had passed. Fear soon began to claw at the back of his mind once more as he began to suspect that the only reason the Dursleys hadn't forcefully pulled him from the game was because they were waiting to see how long it took him to exit on his own.
And the longer he remained in game, the harsher his punishment was going to be.
His life was officially over.
The numbness returned when the clock displayed the time as four-oh-one.
He was now well over an hour and a half late and the log out option had still not been restored. Nor had he been forcibly logged out in order to shut the game down to allow the developers enough time to fix the problem before they rebooted the server and restarted the game. Overwhelmed by the knowledge that his life had just been ruined by the game, Harry collapsed to the ground and blindly stared at a bent blade of grass that sat just inches from his face as his mind conjured up all kinds of horrible punishments that the Dursleys would carry out once he finally made it out of the game.
He'd been drowning in a mixture of cold fear and numbness for exactly forty-nine minutes when he was drawn out of his waking nightmares by the loud toll of a bell repeatedly cutting through the air for several minutes. Once the ringing echoes faded into silence, Harry found himself engulfed in the blue light of a forced teleportation and he half feared and half hoped that that meant that the glitch had been discovered and he was being forcefully ejected out of the game so that the error could be fixed and the servers rebooted.
No such luck.
The moment the light cleared, Harry found himself back in Hajimari no Machi, standing in the middle of the large stone plaza where he'd first appeared when he'd logged into the game over four hours earlier alongside thousands of other Players. Not far from him, two additional pillars of blue light would deposit the two men he'd passed on his way out of town several hours ago at the same time as Harry opened his Player Menu once more in order to check and see if the log out function had been fixed; it hadn't.
As Harry closed his Menu again, thousands more pillars of blue light deposited other individuals in the area until Harry imagined that every single player in the game had been forcefully brought to the large area. When the last transport glow faded, the sky turned red as hundreds of flashing tags blocked out the sky as they declared that a system announcement was about to take place. Shortly after the last patch of blue sky vanished behind one of the tags, a figure poured out of the cracks between the flashing tags to tower over the gathered players.
The moment it was fully formed it began speaking and because he was still far too upset about not being able to log out, Harry ignored the man as he began weaving his way between the other players in an attempt to escape from the plaza in order to find a place where he could break down in privacy. If the man (who was most likely a GM) had been speaking English instead of Japanese, Harry probably would have paid far more attention to him and what he was saying. Had he done that, he would have learned that he and the rest of the Players that had logged in were now trapped in the game.
As it was, Harry never heard, let alone understood, a single word the guy said because he hadn't even listened to him.
The man in the sky was still talking when Harry walked face first into an invisible wall at the edge of the plaza that hadn't been there before. Unwilling to put up with being trapped in the one place where he'd always been free, Harry placed one hand flat against the unseen wall and began following the invisible barrier in an attempt to find the exit. The further he went without finding an opening, the more frantic he became as he tried to find a way to escape and it didn't take long for his traitorous mind to trick him into believing that he was running out of oxygen trapped inside of the Plaza with so many people the way he was.
Never mind the fact that his Avatar technically didn't even need oxygen because it was just a string of digital code inside of a computer server.
He was so wrapped up in his growing panic that he never noticed what was going on around him. He just kept right on testing the unseen barrier for a way out. He never heard the panicked and angry cries of the other Players in response to the things that the oversized GM was telling everyone. Nor did he notice it when the other Players were engulfed in columns of white lights as their created Avatars were replaced with accurate images of their true selves. He didn't even notice when the same white light attempted to engulf him as well only for it to fizz out when a coding error prevented it from transforming his Avatar into an exact replica of his actual face.
The only thing that mattered to Harry was breaking out of the plaza as he bashed his fists against the unseen barrier after he'd been unable to find an opening in it.
The invisible wall that had caged him in the plaza would disappear at the exact same moment that the GM in the sky disappeared from sight; not that Harry knew that. The instant the barrier vanished, Harry toppled forward onto the ground due to the way he'd been leaning and pounding on the invisible wall. It took him several minutes to understand what had happened and once he did, Harry sucked in great gulps of computer simulated fresh air for nearly two full minutes before he scrambled onto his feet in order to flee the area only for him to end up one the ground once again when an unfamiliar man crashed into him.
"Gomen! Gomen!" the man with the short brown hair and a gold stripped red bandana offered as he hurriedly jumped off of Harry and pulled the nine year old to his feet while dusting him off. "I didn't mean to run you over! Are you alright?"
Harry stared at the man without any comprehension before he shook his head and pulled himself free before he took off running in an attempt to get as far away from whomever it was that had just tried to lock him up inside of the Central Plaza. The man that had knocked him down would be forgotten the second he was no longer in Harry's sight; the nine year old's growing panic blotting everything but his need to escape out of his mind. He'd eventually end up in the back lot of a vacant building where he collapsed into a puddle of pathetic as he descended into a full blown panic attack.
By the time Harry had calmed down, night had fallen over Aincrad and he would nearly panic a second time when he noticed he'd been in the game for well over eight hours now and that the log out option was still missing.
Translations: Japanese to English
Gomen – I'm sorry (informal)
Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings
Ken no Sekai – Sword Art Online
Koku Tetsu Kyuu – Black Iron Palace
Sosei-sha no Ma – Room of Resurrection
Game Terminology:
Aincrad – An Incarnating Radius (the name of the Castle that is SAO)
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
GM – Game Moderator
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
SAO – Sword Art Online
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in game skill
Harry's Game Data/Stats (Start of Game):
Category: Human Player
Caste: Warrior
Class: Ranged Fighter
Type: Bowman
Level: 01
HP: 350/350
Cor: 8,500 (5000 carried over from Beta)
Attributes: DEF [05], ATK [10], STR [05], AGI [10], STM [05], & LCK [10]
Unspent Stat Points: [40] (20 extra points carried over from Beta Test)
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: 08 Slots (two extra slots carried over from Beta Test)
(Basic 1-250 pts, Advanced 251-500 pts, Proficient 501-750 pts, Expert 751-999 pts, & Master 1000 pts)
Archery – 0200
Detection – 0200
Hiding – 0200
Hunting – 0200
Listening – 0200
Searching – 0200
Sneak – 0200
Tracking – 0200
Unarmed Skills: 03 (one extra slot carried over from Beta Test)
Escape – 0200
Navigation – 0200
Scouting – 0200
Notes: To calculate the HP for any given level I used the following formula: [175(L – 1) + 350] where L = player's level and 350 represents a player's HP at level one. So, using Harry's beta level (20) as an example; [175(20-1) + 350 = 3675]
AN: This should be the last chapter that has any material extracted or copied and slightly altered from Magic Online in it; though there will still be a few sub-plots, theories, and the like that will pop up from time to time. Aside from that, this story deviates rather strongly from Magic Online (in case that hasn't been obvious in the material already posted) and most everything from this point forward (bar a sentence or paragraph here and there) will be brand new stuff written explicitly for this story.
The next update for this story will be the weekend after next (2-4-18) while next weekend will see Magic Online finally being updated as I finally finished the next chapter of that story after being stuck on it for months. As always, if you're looking for information when a story will be updated, you can always check my author's page where I keep a progress report of all my stories (posted, on-hold, & unposted) that's updated at least once a month with the latest info. You can also follow me on that site that lets you patronize your favorite creators.
For now, thanks for all of the review and adds and I hope you enjoy the chapter! ~ Jenn