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 Five: Circumstantial Contentment

Wednesday, November 06, 2019 9:07 PM
Unoccupied Building Lot, Hajimari no Machi, First Floor

After avoiding a second panic attack by the skin of his teeth, Harry scrubbed his face for a moment to wipe off the tears before he reopened his Menu one more time. This time, instead of hunting for the missing log out option, he returned to the Upload Page to resume uploading the files he'd collected on the computer; he'd need the information in those files if he was going to figure out what was going on. While he waited for the files to be copied (and converted into Book Items in his Inventory), Harry watched the stars in the sky and tried to ignore the oddness of being in the game at night.

Once the final file had been copied over, Harry would spend the rest of the night painstakingly retranslating every single line and page in his Player Menu; going so far as to switch between the various Japanese alphabets in order to make certain his translations were the same regardless of which alphabet was used. He needed to make sure that he hadn't just missed the log out option (since it might have been moved). He even checked the Help Page to see if there was a new log out procedure.

Whenever he needed a break from the tedious work, he checked on the progress of his uploads or just listlessly stared at the shadows that covered the grounds of the building he was hiding behind. A couple of times, his thoughts drifted to the giant man that had appeared in the sky above the Central Plaza and he wondered if the man had told everyone what was going on but for the most part, he shied away from thinking about the time he'd spent in the plaza due to the panic he now associated with being trapped in the area with so many other people.

By the time that Harry finished translating his Menu in an attempt to scour it for a way out of the game, the sun was rising once more and Harry was at a loss as to what he should do now.

Harry would eventually recall that a Player's death usually provided an alternate way to exit the game but instead of rushing straight out to the nearest Dungeon for a quick death, he got up and headed for the Koku Tetsu Kyuu and the Sosei-sha no Ma. His reasoning…? He'd need to know if the respawned Players had a way to reliably log out aside from dying in the game because he did not want to get stuck each time he logged on to play (Harry studiously ignoring the fact that gaining said information would actually require him to interact with the other Players).

That's if he ever got the chance to log back into the game once he'd faced his relatives.

The moment that Harry stepped into the Sosei-sha no Ma, he knew there was something wrong with the room. To start, the room seemed far darker and more sinister than it had in the Beta Version of the game. Then there was the huge black wall that now sat near the front of the room right over the spot where Players used to respawn after dying. And the last difference was the new sign beside the entrance that displayed the words 'Seimei no Ishibumi' (which translated to Monument of Life according to his Japanese to English Dictionary) instead of the original 'Sosei-sha no Ma' sign.

After translating the room's new name, Harry nervously moved closer to inspect the polished stone wall at the front of the room and a shiver raced down his spine when he saw all of the names that had been etched into the black wall in alphabetical order. He felt more than a little queasy when he found his character's name on the wall with the other 'j' names. Even more worrisome was the way that some of the names had been crossed out with yesterday or today's date and a time etched beside them along with what he would soon learn was that Player's cause of death.

Moving away from the creepy wall, Harry made himself comfortable beside the entrance while he waited for one of the other Players to respawn. After the first hour of waiting in which the room had been briefly visited by a dozen different Players who'd all entered through the door like Harry but not a single respawned Player had appeared, Harry grew bored. He'd eventually pull out the little book of common Japanese sayings and useful phrases in order to work on his Japanese while he waited for a Player to respawn.

Throughout the day, several other Players would burst into the room to join Harry in his self-assigned vigil, more than a few of them begging and crying or ranting and raving for some reason, and stay for short periods of time before they left or were dragged off by others. A few of them even rushed up to Harry when they noticed him in the room and demanded to know if they'd seen such and such person respawn (at least, that was what he thought they were asking him based on the translation he'd looked up after the second time he'd been questioned) and they'd always start wailing the moment he shook his head no in reply.

After the sixth person had broken down in front of him in response to his silent reply to their question, Harry moved to the far corner of the room where the shadows were thickest and where he was far less likely to be approached by others as he continued to wait for a Player to respawn.

As the hours continued to pass without a single respawn and the number of distraught Players crowding the former Room of Resurrection continued to rise, Harry grew increasingly worried and sick to his stomach. When the sun set at the end of the day and there still hadn't been any respawned Players, Harry slipped away from the Black Iron Palace in order to get away from the other people in the room because their behavior and open shows of emotions were making him extremely uncomfortable (their tears reminding him of his panic attack).

He was also more than a little exhausted because he'd been awake for over twenty-four hours now but he hadn't wanted to fall asleep in a room filled with strangers. He was also hungry because he hadn't eaten anything for two days now but he didn't exactly know if there was food available in the game. Even if there was, he wasn't sure what good it would do to eat it because it wouldn't be real food that he was eating. So, Harry ignored his hunger for now and simply made his way back to the yard of the vacant building that he'd spent the previous night in.

Upon arriving in the familiar yard, Harry hid himself between the shrubbery and the building where he'd be overlooked by the casual observer before he drifted off to sleep.

When he woke up the next morning, Harry huddled between the house and the bushes where he'd slept for nearly an hour; the nine year old shivering in fear due to the fact that he'd been locked in the game for over two days now. He was also very confused. Why hadn't the Dursleys' pulled the plug on the computer to force him out of the game? Why hadn't the missing log out button been restored? Why weren't any of the Players that had to have died in the Dungeons over the past couple of days respawning? Why were the other Players he'd seen so upset?

After being swallowed by his fears for over an hour, Harry forced himself to his feet and ignored the faint complaints from his 'empty' stomach as he made his way to the largest gathering of Players according to his map; the church. Once he reached the church, Harry hesitated outside of the building for several long minutes wondering if he'd be welcome there or not since he'd never before set foot in a church. Actually, there were many kinds of buildings that he hadn't been inside of both here in Aincrad and back in the real world.

Here, in the game, the only places Harry had gone inside of aside from the Black Iron Palace had been a handful of the shops that were scattered through the city. Even during the Beta Test, he'd avoided most of the buildings since there hadn't really been any reason for him to enter them and he'd been more interested in exploring the world rather than exploring a bunch of buildings where other Players hung out. Yet, now here he was, standing in front of a church with the intent of not only going inside but going inside to 'spy' on thousands of Players.

And he was going to spy on them.

He had no intention of flat out asking them what was going on; that would make him look stupid for not knowing and it would also reveal the fact that he really didn't know how to speak Japanese all that well and he didn't know if the other Players would be offended by that or not. (Harry well remembered the numerous angry rants that Uncle Vernon had made about lazy foreigners who didn't bother to learn English properly before coming to England; so, it stood to reason that because this was a Japanese game, they'd expect him to know Japanese too because he was there in the game.)

So, yes, he was going to step into the church and hide himself in a corner where he'd be overlooked and spend his time 'Listening' to the other Players talk amongst themselves without their permission.

And that was spying.

Swallowing his uncertainties, Harry mentally prepared himself for what he was about to do (much as he would when planning out his little secret rebellions against the Dursleys) and then slipped into the church using Sneak in order to draw as little attention to himself as possible. Once inside, he found himself in an empty atrium but could hear the rumble of many people speaking coming from behind the closed doors that led deeper into the church. Gathering his courage a second time, Harry snuck through the next set of doors and immediately found himself in a crowded room filled with long benches (what he'd later learn were called pews).

No one even glanced in Harry's direction as he eased the door shut behind him and stared wide-eyed at the large gathering of Players inside the church. He'd never seen so many people in once place before (if he ignored his forced teleportation to the plaza alongside all of the other Players in the game the other day). He hadn't even seen this many people during school assemblies at St. Grogory's. He'd known there were lots of people in here but he hadn't really thought about how many 'live' bodies that would mean would be present.

Harry very nearly turned tail and ran upon learning how many people were inside of the church but his need to know what was happening in the game kept him rooted to the floor.

It took him a few minutes to swallow the growing panic at being trapped with so many people inside of a building and once he could think clearly, he quickly moved away from the door and took a seat on one of the benches as far away from the other Players as possible and curled in on himself as he activated his Listening Skill. The soft murmur of multiple voices immediately turned into a dull roar of multiple conversations and Harry wished he'd thought to bring a Recording Crystal with him so he'd be able to record everything in order to review it later.

Since he didn't have a Recording Crystal, he simply focused on the loudest voices in turns as he did his best to translate everything he was hearing while he flipped through his Japanese to English Dictionary to look up those words he didn't know. The fact that all of the conversations focused on a small number of topics (each group focusing on a different aspect of those topics or how the topics made them feel) meant that it wasn't as hard of a task as it might have been otherwise.

It would still take Harry most of the day to understand what it was that everyone was talking (or in some cases yelling or whining) about and once he did understand, he grew numb.

Kayaba Akihiko (the creator of Sword Art Online) had imprisoned all ten thousand of the Players that had logged into the game on opening day on the server where the main program was housed. He'd basically taken ten thousand people hostage inside of the game. If that wasn't bad enough, he'd also learned that those people who died in the game were supposedly killed in real life by their NerveGear. And the reason that no Players had respawned in Sosei-sha no Ma since the game had started was because they were dead.

On top of that, he'd heard quite a few people in the church complain and curse about the Beta Testers and how the more 'experienced' Players had abandoned them immediately after Kayaba's speech. Hearing a bunch of people talking like that made Harry nervous because he had been a Beta Tester and he wasn't exactly helping anyone in the game. Of course, Harry didn't really consider himself an experienced Player either; it's not like he really knew what he was doing half the time and he didn't know any secrets to beating the game since he hadn't properly played the game.

The very last thing that Harry had learned was that all of the Players had had their Avatars changed to reflect their real-life appearances. Or rather, all of the Players bar Harry (as far as Harry knew). For some reason, Harry's Avatar was the same exact Avatar he'd designed after he'd fixed the errors on his Beta Account once he'd finally managed to translate everything. He assumed it was because he'd never touched the Hand Mirror that Kayaba had gifted to all of the Players in the game; since none of their Avatars had changed until after they'd handled the Mirror.

In actuality, the reason his Avatar hadn't been scrubbed was due to the fact that he'd goofed on the installation and in doing so had created a software conflict that had prevented Harry's Avatar from being switched over like everyone else's had been. That was also far from the only conflict that had been created by his unintentional mistake. It was very similar to the glitch that had prevented his Character Skills and Stats from being completely reset and allowed for 'extras' to be transferred over from his Beta Account; like the extra Cor he'd had when he'd first logged in on the sixth.

However, the biggest conflict generated by the improper installation was in the coding responsible for generating the number of Experience Points gained with each Monster defeated or Quest completed. In the Full Version of SAO, the amount of XP earned had been cut in half when compared to the amount of XP that the Beta Testers had earned in the Beta Version in order to make the game more challenging. In Harry's case though, the coding responsible for calculating the XP Value of each Monster or Quest had been corrupted by his failure to delete the older version off of the computer.

So, instead of halving the amount of XP he gained, it added half again to the amount of XP; meaning that he would be earning one and a half times more Experience than the other Players.

Another significant glitch was the Randomized Monster Spawning Glitch that caused Monsters to spawn outside of the designated spawning locations that were assigned to each individual species. An example would be a Frenzy Boar appearing in a forest instead of on the plains. Two more examples would be several Monsters spawning directly beside Harry one right after another or possibly no Monsters spawning near him for an unnaturally long period of time. Not that Harry would really notice since he wasn't in the game to fight Monsters, he was there because it was his home.

The last major glitch that would seriously affect Harry's 'game play' throughout the duration of the Death Game was the one that would periodically hide him from the Cardinal System (the sophisticated program that ran the game) when he set foot in specific locations. That basically meant that the system running the game would lose track of Harry's existence from time to time for no apparent reason. The importance of this little glitch wouldn't be realized until long after the game ended though.

There were also other, little conflicts scattered throughout the game's programming but most of them were insignificant when compared to the Experience Calculator Glitch, the Randomized Monster Spawning Glitch, or the Vanishing Player Glitch.

Harry kept the Hand Mirror but took care to never actually take it out of his Inventory lest touching the Mirror caused his Avatar to be replaced with an image of his actual self. He didn't want people to know he was just a kid because adults had a habit of telling kids what they could and couldn't do and if Harry was going to be stuck in a virtual world with a bunch of adult strangers, then he wasn't going to let them tell him how to play the game. Nor was he going to let them tell him how he had to live inside of the game now that they were stuck there.

He'd gotten enough of that from the Dursleys and it had made him miserable for as long as he could remember.

And there was no way he was going to allow anyone else to make him miserable in Aincrad.

Not if he could help it.

When he returned to the vacant building that he'd been camping outside of for the last couple of days at sunset, Harry sat back down behind the shrubs that lined the wall at the back of the building and thought about what that he'd learned over the past several hours. He knew he should be scared over the fact that Kayaba had pretty much kidnapped him through the game but all he felt was numb inside and out. He should also be terrified of dying but he just couldn't bring himself to care since a type of death awaited him in the real world in the form of the Dursleys' wrath.

So, it didn't really matter if he lived or died in SAO because his real life was already over either way.

Not that Harry was at all sad over learning that he might never again have to see his relatives.

In fact, he was quite happy to be locked up inside of Aincrad because it meant that he'd never have to leave his home.

The moment that thought had passed through Harry's mind, the numbness that had gripped him since he'd gotten the answers to most of his questions had faded into a contented excitement. All of Aincrad sat at his fingertips now and he would never again have to force himself to walk away from his home in order to face his miserable existence in real life any more. Now, instead of spending a few stolen hours in the place he called home every day, he could spend every single hour of every single day in the world he loved with all his heart.

Harry was still smiling when he curled up to get some sleep that night with the knowledge that his life as Joe Bloggs, Archer of Aincrad was only just starting.

Saturday, November 09, 2019 11:21 AM
Western Gate, Hajimari no Machi, First Floor

Harry thoughtfully reentered Hajimari after spending the last four hours in the nearby Dungeon exploring the fields that surrounded the sprawling city. For the first time since he'd started playing SAO, he'd spent time in a Dungeon without once fighting a Monster. The reason for that was entirely due to the thousands of Players that were attempting to level up by fighting the low level Monsters that spawned in the Dungeon closest to the city. In fact, he'd even witnessed several arguments breaking out between Players when one Player poached another Player's Monster at the last minute.

The reason for that was due to the limited number of Monsters that would spawn per day in a given Dungeon and right now there were far too many Players hunting in the same Dungeon and there just weren't enough Monsters to go around.

Harry was unbothered by that revelation for the most part because he wasn't exactly interested in leveling up just to grow stronger. All he was interested in was seeing as much of his new home as he could before someone managed to clear the game and end their imprisonment; an accomplishment that would one day see Harry being permanently locked out of his chosen home. So, there was absolutely no reason at all for him to fight with the other Players over the Monsters in the Dungeons around Hajimari.

On the other hand, Harry would need to level up eventually if he ever hoped to see what was beyond the First Floor of Aincrad since he knew the Monsters grew stronger the further away from Hajimari one moved. He'd learned that the hard way when he'd been exploring the First Floor in the Beta Test. So, that meant that Harry would need to leave Hajimari sooner rather than later if he ever hoped to get strong enough to explore the rest of his home. Before he could actually leave though, there were a few things that he needed to do.

At the top of his list was to stock up on those supplies he would need as he traveled through the Dungeons; starting with Healing Potions and a wider assortment of Antidote and other Crystals. Things that he feared would be much harder to find in Hajimari now than they had been when he'd first logged on because the other Players would have rushed to buy them in the hopes that the Items would save their lives while they were in the game. Prices had potentially increased due to an increased demand for the Items as well; Harry had learned about Supply and Demand in school.

The preteen not realizing that real world scenarios didn't exactly apply to the game and that the prices of all NPC sold Items were fixed in a matter of speaking; prices would vary from Floor to Floor or even Village to Village but otherwise stay the same.

Another Item that he would need to stock up on was Arrows. After he'd taken a shine to his Bow, Harry had learned very quickly during the Beta Test that you really couldn't have enough Arrows on hand when exploring the Dungeons. That was especially true when it came to the weakest and cheapest of the Arrows available in the game because it took more than a single Arrow to kill a Monster regardless of where it hit the creature. Extra Bowstrings would also be needed since the strings broke fairly easy and replacing the strings just before they broke actually extended the durability of the Bow.

He also needed to figure out what to do about the hunger he felt. Harry knew his Avatar didn't actually have a stomach but that didn't stop him from feeling like he had one and that it was currently screaming at him to feed it. He'd never needed to eat in the game before but he'd also never spent more than three and a half hours max in the game without a break. He hadn't needed to sleep in the game previously either and he'd already done that twice since he'd logged on back on the sixth. And he knew it was possible to grow exhausted within the game – he'd learned that firsthand.

After giving the matter some thought, Harry figured that the best place to start looking for both answers and supplies was the Central Market that sat just to the west of the Central Plaza.

Harry usually avoided the Central Market because that was where those Players that chose the Merchant Cast or the Trade Cast (those that took up professions such as Smithing or Tailoring) as their occupation (or Class) in the game (as opposed to say, the Warrior Cast – like Harry) usually set up a stall until they could afford to purchase an actual shop in which to sell their goods. He'd long made it a habit to buy from NPCs because there was less of a chance that an NPC would try to engage him in a conversation (unless they were Quest NPCs and he avoided those ones anyway).

As soon as he reached the Central Market, Harry began wandering through the stalls checking out the various Items that were on display. He also very carefully took note of which vendors were Players and which ones were NPCs since he wasn't really ready to deal with another human in the game. He eventually stumbled upon several stalls that were selling 'fresh' produce and baked goods and he imagined he could hear his stomach back in the real world start growling the moment he laid eyes on the 'food'.

After locating an NPC owned stall, Harry purchased a small selection of fruits and vegetables before he moved to a different vendor to purchase a variety of baked goods (most of them ones he'd never tried before). Once he'd completed both purchases, Harry opened his Menu to access his Inventory and withdrew a single orange to eat for a late breakfast. Peeling the orange was as easy as pulling on the little 'stem' that sat at the top of the fruit (where the fruit had once been attached to the tree it had grown on).

Harry then watched with more than a little amusement mixed with awe as the peel unraveled and shattered as it dropped away from the fruit before the wedges fanned out in a perfect circle to reveal that there was a small circle of peel still attached to the bottom of each wedge to hold them in place. Eating the fruit at that point simply required one to pluck the wedges free from the bit of peel. The nine year old had never before found something as simple as eating a piece of fruit so fascinating and it made him wonder if the other fruits had similar little tricks.

Once he'd finished eating the orange (without needing to deal with the typical stickiness associated with a real orange), Harry was surprised to feel full; as if he'd eaten a full meal. That knowledge let him know that the food he'd bought would last a bit longer than he'd originally thought it would since he wouldn't have to eat multiple Items just to take the edge off of the simulated hunger he felt. He would later learn that all Food Items carried 'expiration dates', though the length of time an Item was good for would vary from Item to Item with 'raw ingredients' lasting the longest.

After Harry had gotten over the strangeness of his first in-game meal, Harry wondered if there was a place that sold drinks and if they would also 'fill him up' since he hadn't actually felt thirst like he had felt hunger. A quick question posed to a random NPC he was passing on the street saw him being directed to the nearest Inn. Harry hesitated to enter at first (because a number of Players were likely inside) before he swallowed his nervousness and stepped through the door and headed to the bar to see what the NPC Bartender had for sale.

Ten minutes later, he left the Inn with four bottles of Chilled Milk and an equal amount of bottled Mulled Cider. He could have purchased an assortment of various alcohols too but he hadn't been interested in them even if the Bottled Mead had been cheaper than both the Milk and the Cider. He had, on the other hand, purchased half a dozen packets of Salted Peanuts and two bags of Roasted Chestnuts; both of which were familiar snacks that he'd only ever gotten to have on rare occasions when they'd been served at special events at school.

After he'd left the Inn, Harry headed for a stall selling Potions. The stall was manned by a Player but his prices looked lower than what they would cost in an NPC manned store. The guy selling the Potions looked honest and didn't attempt to engage his customers in small talk so Harry decided to chance buying from him since it would save him a bit of Cor in the long run. The purchase was made with even less fuss than it had taken to buy food from the NPCs and Harry walked away with a dozen Healing Potions.

Harry's next stop was then one of the NPC stores just outside of the Central Market where he could sell off the handful of Items he'd picked up on the sixth (when he'd been testing his Archery Skill) and buy more Arrows. The only Item he didn't sell off this time was the Meat he'd picked up; now that he knew the game would prompt him to eat, he figured he could save some money by making his own food. If he'd thought about it sooner, he probably could have eaten some of that meat earlier instead of buying food from the stalls.

Of course, the novelty of watching his orange peel itself and bloom like a flower had been worth the money spent. He also didn't think he could bring himself to eat raw meat even if it wasn't actual raw meat he'd be eating; so he'd have to figure out how to cook the Meat before he tried to eat the Meat he picked up in Monster Drops.

With that in mind, Harry went hunting through the various stores around town looking for one that sold kitchen supplies. He eventually found one on the east side of the city and after a short debate he bought a Soup Pot, a Cutting Board, a Ladle, and Small Camping Stove. He also, with great reluctance given his experiences in the game with swords and daggers, purchased a small Cooking Knife since he'd need it to 'cut' certain Food Items (like the various meats and vegetables). He also bought a single set of Camping Dishes and Utensils.

Of course, the fact that there was 'camping equipment' available in the game meant that it was possible to 'camp' out in the Dungeons and after checking how much money he had left, he purchased a Sleeping Bag, a Lantern (since they didn't sell torches), extra Battery Packs (for the Lantern and Camp Stove), a Camp Chair, a Bamboo Fishing Rod, and two packs of Fishing Line.

It might have been dumb of him to waste his money on things he really didn't need but Harry had never been camping in real life and the concept appealed to him because it meant sleeping out under the stars instead of under the stairs. Sure, he'd done the same thing the last couple of nights in Hajimari but sleeping in a vacant yard wasn't the same as camping out in a Dungeon. He also liked the idea of being able to cover more ground in his explorations if he didn't have to constantly return to a city at night just to sleep.

By the time Harry had finished purchasing his camping equipment, night had fallen once more and he retreated back to the vacant building he'd been 'camping' outside of. He would then spend another two hours inspecting his new Items before he tested out the Stove in order to make certain it worked; cooking a chunk of Boar Meat from his Inventory. Only he ended up burning the soup he'd tried to make out of it because he lacked the experience. And while the act of making the attempt unlocked the Equipped Skill titled Cooking, he didn't have an open slot to make use of it yet.

So, after tossing out the charcoal soup and putting his cooking things away, Harry nibbled his way through something called Melon Bread before he pulled his brand spanking new Sleeping Bag out of his Inventory and went to bed. Before he fell asleep, Harry marveled over how warm he felt tucked inside of the game's Sleeping Bag. He hadn't even noticed that he'd been so cold the last couple of nights (winter was fast approaching in both real life and the game) until he was warmly snuggled inside of the Sleeping Bag and he felt in awe of how everything inside of the game felt so real.

The realistic cast to everything in the game made it easy for Harry to forget that he was inside of a game and as he slipped into Morpheus's arms, the only thought in his mind that he was home.

The mental reaffirmation that Aincrad was his home combined with Harry's mostly calm acceptance of being trapped inside of the server (minus his panic attack over being trapped in Central Plaza) and his belief that this was his chance for new life saw Harry's magic and the magic in the blood wards once again activating to carry out his will. This time, the combined magics began the process of slowly integrating Harry's magic (and therefore his soul) into the coding of the game using the improperly implanted and magically augmented NERDLES as a conduit.

It was a process that would take six weeks and one that Harry would never notice happening due to the gradual nature of the transference.

It started with a trickle of his magic being shunted into the server through the NerveGear where it promptly began fusing itself to the programming code that made up Harry's Avatar in the game in order to turn the Avatar into a proper vessel capable of containing Harry's soul. Once there was enough magic in his Avatar, his magic would spread to his Player Menu and from there to the Items he held in his Inventory or on his person for any length of time and to the Skills he'd unlocked. That would be especially true for the Equipment and Skills that he regularly used.

Harry wouldn't learn the full details of what had happened to him until years later; though he would notice quite a few of the changes that were made during the transference process even though he didn't recognize what they meant at the time.

Translations: Japanese to English

Cor – the currency used in SAO
Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings
Koku Tetsu Kyuu – Black Iron Palace
Seimei no Ishibumi – Monument of Life
Sosei-sha no Ma – Room of Resurrection

Game Terminology:

Aincrad – An Incarnating Radius (the name of the Castle that is SAO)
ALF – Aincrad Liberation Force later called The Army by the in-game players
Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play
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
GM – Game Moderator – a group of players that were hired/selected to help the rest of the players by answering questions about the game, police those players breaking the rules, and collecting information about bugs found within the game so that they could be fixed
HP – Hit Points: the number of Life Force/Life Points/Health Points a person has
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
Respawn – a reset of the player's (or Monster's) character after the character has 'died' within the game
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
XP – short hand for Experience Points

Notes:

Torch – British term for flashlight; so, Harry had hoped to buy a small flashlight in the game and not an actual wooden torch (though there are actual wooden torches in the game) and because they didn't have any, he bought a lamp instead.

AN: I apologize for the lateness of this post, I got sick, had some PC issues, got frustrated, and sulked for a few days. I'll be posting chapter six on Friday and chapter seven on Sunday to make up for missing two weekends in a row. I'll be answering PMs in between updates and AFTER I finish getting some stuff up on my patronizing page. Details and more information on why I was gone for so long will be on my author's page sometime tomorrow. Jenn