Author's Note: This is a revised version. The original version of this chapter was decent, but revealed more than I had intended. There have been a significant changes in the later portions, which may warrant a re-read of this chapter. Now, I proudly present to you...
Castle Carnation
~Chapter 2~
«CC» New Player Quick-start Guide: The Operation of Weapons
Experienced players, real life gun operators, and those who would rather learn through experience may skip this section.
Guns require ammunition. Certain guns fire certain types of ammunition. Be aware that different ammunition may have different effects when fired.
Most guns fire cartridges. Cartridges consist of a casing, containing the gunpowder, and the actual bullet / projectile that is fired. Some guns may require that cartridges be loaded individually, but a majority will use magazines, which will hold ammunition and feed it into a weapon. 'Round' is a generic term meaning one shot's worth of ammunition. 'Shell' can mean either a large, often explosive projectile in flight, or ammunition for shotguns. The words 'ammunition', 'bullet', 'cartridge', 'shell', and 'round' technically refer to different things, but they may often be used interchangeably.
Remember, guns can have a «safety», a switch that must be released to allow the gun to be fired. No spammed messages to GMs complaining that weapons aren't working, please!
«Chamber» refers to a weapon's firing chamber, the area behind the barrel where a cartridge is ignited. A bullet can only be fired properly if it is in the chamber, and the chamber will usually hold only one cartridge at a time.
A gun's «action» determines how it ejects used casings and chambers new cartridges. Semi-automatic and automatic weapons like the starting «Glock 19» use recoil force to chamber follow-up shots, drawing the rounds from magazines. «Slide» refers to the top section of a pistol that is pushed back when it is fired. Pump and lever action weapons require manual interaction to chamber rounds. Exceptions, such as revolvers, do exist.
As a gun is used, it will incur durability damage. The rate at which a gun degrades can be minimized by «servicing» and «cleaning» the gun periodically. Your level in the «gun servicing» skill affects this greatly. Note that guns, like most objects, can also take durability damage through impacts.
«CC» features an auto-reload function. If you are in an acceptable stance and your weapon has no ammunition remaining, a white circle appears to the bottom left of your view. Tapping it will make the system automatically switch magazines or insert new cartridges into your weapon. This process takes a few seconds and does not work from many firing positions, so you may find learning to reload weapons manually in your best interests.
Consult NPC vendors or players with high Appraisal skill for detailed information regarding all facets of gun operation.
We hope that this info sheet was helpful and will continue to be helpful in your journeys through Castle Carnation.
May your fire be focused,
the «CC» development team
"Where?"
"Right there."
The player scratched his maroon-dyed hair. "Ey, you need to be more specific, man. I'm not seeing what you're seeing."
Kirito leaned in close to him, pointing at the spot with his left hand. "Over there. See that, between the two bushes?"
The two of them stood together amidst the knee-high grasses of the plains to the west of the «Starting City». Being so positioned, it was one of the easiest areas in the game, perfect for training up fresh characters. The telltale pops of distant gunshots sounded out frequently, evidence of numerous other players in the area. Kirito, having over a month of beta test experience under his belt, might have gone ahead to a more risky area by this point. However, his recently acquired acquaintance, by the handle of Klein, wasn't quite ready for that.
Klein squinted. "That... that little black bump? Is that an enemy?"
"Mmm," Kirito confirmed with a nod. "See if you can hit him."
"Wha?" Klein exclaimed. "I can barely see him..."
Kirito sighed. "You get a targeting reticule. It's not too difficult. Hurry up and take your gun out."
"If you say so," Klein mumbled, grabbing his starting weapon from its holster on his hip. "I haven't used a gun before in real life. What's the best way of doing this?"
"Well... a basic attack is very simple. You make sure the end is pointing at your target and pull the trigger. How you hold the gun is just personal preference, but the more stable your stance is, the smaller the system will make the bullet spread."
Klein spread his legs, gripped the gun with both hands, and looked down the sights. A thin green circle was projected unto Klein's view where the gun was pointed. He swung the gun about, watching as the circle followed his aim. Then, experimentally, he shifted his stance several times, watching as the circle expanded and contracted.
"So you can hold it any way you want, right? How do you usually do it?"
Kirito shrugged. "Well, there's still recoil, so you need to make sure you don't drop it, but yeah. Usually with a pistol I use a one-handed grip with a straight arm, like this." He demonstrated, drawing his own gun.
With a quick step, he pivoted so his chest faced Klein. His left arm hung loosely by his side, and he could look along his right shoulder to see his target. "It wasn't a very popular shooting stance in beta, but I guess I prefer it. Most people face the target and use both hands, like you're supposed to in real life. That way gives you more accuracy. Depends on how close the target is, though. For closer enemies, your stance can need to be more mobile."
"I think I get it," Klein said. "Let me try and hit this sucker..."
He squinted, lifted the gun with both hands so the circle hovered over the black lump that was his target, and tightened his finger around the trigger.
A metal pin swung forwards, striking the sensitive rear priming of the loaded cartridge. Dark black powder flared to life and flung forwards a pointed projectile, the curved grooves of the barrel forcing it into a tight stabilizing spin. The crack of the «Glock 19» reached Kirito's ears, and he saw a small puff of dirt rise where the bullet impacted, about a foot to the left of where Klein was aiming. Spent, the bullet's casing was ejected, popping out in a small arc unto the grassy ground, where in a few seconds its durability was depleted and it shattered into a puff of blue particles.
"Eh? I missed?"
His target now lifted its head to face him: a boar, with red eyes, dark hair, and sharp tusks.
"Don't worry. That was an unlikely shot to make anyways. As it gets closer, it'll be easier to hit!"
As if on cue, the boar grunted and charged at them. Klein's eyes widened, and he began to shoot. His first five shots were erratic, and none of them hit. Kirito quickly chimed in with advice. "Don't shoot so quickly! Look at your reticule, see how it expands after each shot? Stay steady; wait for it to shrink a little before shooting again."
Klein paused, and sure enough, his green aim circle tightened The boar was still a good ten meters away, but at last, the entirety of the circle was on the boar rather than around it. Klein fired a sixth time, and the shot connected, scraping the boar's belly and making it falter.
"Hah! Got him!"
"Nice," Kirito complemented. "But he still has most of his health left..."
"What?"
Klein now saw the curved health bar to the boar's side, still in the green at about ninety percent. The boar shook its head briefly before resuming its charge.
"Ahh!"
The boar reached him and butted its head, slamming its tusks into his chest with considerable force. The impact knocked him off of his feet, and he landed quite ungracefully on his back, with his health points decreased by nearly a fifth.
Before the boar could hurt him more (as funny as that would be) Kirito attracted its attention with a swift shot to its side. It turned and lunged towards him, but he dodged the attack with a sidestep.
"Right in the pancreas..." Klein groaned, clutching his chest.
"Oh, get up. You don't actually feel any pain when you take damage. Hurry up, I can't keep it occupied forever."
"Still feels like something hit me..."
Nevertheless, Klein clambered back to his feet, gripping his gun firmly. The boar continued to poke at Kirito, who kept it at bay with kicks and the occasional shot. "Hurry up, Klein. He's right in front of you, don't bother with the careful aim, just shoot him up. Hyah!" Kirito's booted foot connected firmly with the boar's snout, and it turned away from him, focusing back on Klein.
"Yaaaaa!" Klein shouted, rapidly pulling the trigger of his weapon. In less than two seconds, the nine remaining bullets in his magazine had been expended. The last shot popped the handgun's slide open.
Kirito watched the boar's health bar drop, satisfied at first, but then frowned as the health decrease slowed, stopping in the yellow zone with still a third remaining. "Jesus, Klein, you only hit him twice with all those shots? I said 'don't bother with careful aim', not 'don't aim at all'..."
"You could have been more specific!" Klein said with a raised voice, somewhat panicked. He looked down at his gun, which had its slide locked open. "Uh, out of bullets, what do I-"
The boar hit him again, sending him cartwheeling back with an indignant yelp.
"Reload!" Kirito advised. "You should have spare magazines in your inventory, just find the release switch and swap them. Accessories can let you have magazines ready without going into your inventory screen, but we won't get those until a bit later."
Klein, sprawled on the floor, flailed out with his legs at the boar, trying with limited success to replicate Kirito's boar-repellent kicks. "Isn't there like an auto-reload thing I can just tap somewhere!?"he asked. The boar's clashes with his boots chipped away at his health points as he fumbled with the floating menu.
"Won't work unless you're on your feet," Kirito answered. "It's better to learn to reload manually, anyways. Auto-reload is pretty slow."
Klein found an item labeled «Glock magazine-9x19mm Standard-15/15». "I-is it... this?" He tapped its icon, and it coalesced in his hand with a cerulean glow. The simplicity of the boar's attack algorithm was plainly displayed, as it continued to be deterred by Klein's panicked flutter kicks. "Where's this button that drops the magazine out-ack!"
The boar knocked his legs aside with a sideways swing of its tusks and pounced unto his abdomen.
Kirito rolled his eyes and took aim with his own gun. If Klein died here, it'd be annoying having to run back to the city to retrieve him.
The sights of his «Glock 19» lined up perfectly with his right arm, shoulder, and eyes. As he looked down them, the green accuracy circle shrunk so that most of it was over the boar rather than Klein's struggling form.
Most of it. Not good enough. At this early level, he simply didn't have enough skill points to get highly accurate normal shooting.
Fortunately, there was an alternative.
Kirito squinted fiercely, focusing intently on the gun in his hand and the boar before him. He took a deep breath, and as he released it, felt the slight pull he was intimately familiar with. The «Glock 19» began to shine a faint orange. The green aiming circle disappeared completely, and with it, Kirito's doubt. With full confidence, Kirito pulled the trigger. The glow of his gun intensified, pulsing bright yellow as it fired.
Kirito would have sworn he could feel the action of the gun in his hands, the intricate metal pieces cycling in unison to eject the spent cartridge and load the next, as though it were an extension of his own body.
The bullet pierced into the boar's side, and its slightly angled trajectory took it all the way through. On a real animal, the shot would have impacted nearly every vital organ, being instantly fatal. Here, the system tried its best to emulate the same.
The mob's curved HP bar shrunk to red and then faded to nothing, and the boar itself disintegrated into shards of pixilated blue.
Kirito relaxed, and, as quickly as it had come, the glow around his gun faded, and the green aim circle reappeared.
iamkayabaiamthecontrolleriamtherestorercardinalismyswordthisworldcanstillberealyoudidyourbestthankyounowmydreamisrealdream
"Hey, Marc?"
"Yeah?"
"You having this problem? I can't seem to use the system commands properly."
"Hmm... let me trace the callback... it says you don't have permissions? Ohkawa, right? You're sure you're linked in correctly?"
"I swear it's not a permissions problem. We're still in dev mode, we should have level zero access to all functions of «Cardinal»."
"Dunno. Try sudo-ing with root? Maybe the command itself is bugged."
"Okay. This kind of problem should have come up during the beta test, shouldn't it? I didn't think we'd be dealing with a problem like this on launch day."
"Yeah, it should have. I'll run down to the server room, see if everything's good down there."
"You do that, Marc. You do that. Ugh, why isn't this working? I'm supposed to have root access..."
"Thanks... what was with that shot? Why'd your gun turn all glowy?"
"Before I explain that, I have to say, Klein, not too impressed with your shooting."
"What do you mean?" Klein pouted. "I thought I did pretty good."
"You hit, what, three shots out of fifteen? Maybe you'd be better off with a shotgun. Let's pick one up for you when we stop by town."
"Hey! He was charging at me, okay? I was nervous! And that green circle was still pretty big, even when I waited to shoot. Can't blame me for random numbers..."
Kirito decided not to mention the times he'd died to the very same boars in the early days of the beta test. "That boar though? He's a really basic enemy, like slimes in other games. It only gets harder from here."
"...Seriously? But that was difficult... I thought he was a mid-level boss at least..."
"You'll get better with practice, I'm sure. Now, I'll tell you about the mechanic I just used. Don't blame me if you can't get it to work right immediately, though. I didn't manage to do it until the fifth day of the beta test."
"No way. What's it called?"
"Oh, Marc, you're back. Figured out what's wrong?"
"No! This is ridiculous. Nothing seems broken, but all of our administrator accounts are locked out of «Cardinal». It might be a networking issue. Nishida dived in for testing, but I can't even send a message to him because of the privilege issue. He might not even know there's a problem."
"This isn't a super-large problem, is it? It's not urgent that we can't use admin commands. «Cardinal» is supposed to be almost completely automated anyways."
"I guess so. Makes me nervous, though. We've worked on this project for years, I didn't think that-"
"MARC! OHKAWA! Fucking national police just called. Turn on the news, any channel. What the hell is going on?"
...
"They're... dead?"
"Jesus Christ..."
"This is a joke, right?"
"I god damn wish it were, Marc! Shut everything down. Setagaya, Mishima, Sorachi, every server!"
"Wait! The police said they died when the NerveGears were removed. There's nothing we programmed that could make a NerveGear kill someone. Maybe this isn't such a good ide-"
"We have to do something! Are we being hacked? Ohkawa, start figuring this out! I'm cutting the Tokai servers, at least. If nothing goes wrong we'll shut down the rest... Some Kikuoka guy from Internal Affairs is on the phone, someone answer him and get some information..."
"So... «Focus Fire»?" Klein carefully turned his brand-new «Remington Model 31» shotgun over, inspecting the polished walnut wood of the stock and pump handle.
Kirito nodded. "It sounds a bit silly, I know. Did you follow the project back in its early development, when they demoed the pre-alpha at E3 two years ago? Remember the «sword skills»?"
"I remember," Klein confirmed. "You took a stance, and the system assisted your movements. That's not what «Focus Fire» is, is it? That'd be ridiculous with guns."
"Yeah, it would," Kirito agreed. "It's not the same thing. Almost the opposite, actually. It's related though. I heard some people calling it a spiritual successor."
Kirito removed his gun from its holster. "How can I explain it? The stance is important, but it's not something you can do by just moving your muscles. You have to channel your willpower into the gun."
Klein laughed lightly at this. "That's the dumbest crap I've ever heard. Can the NerveGear even tell those kinds of things?"
"Mmm," Kirito answered. "It examines all neural impulses. The NerveGear has to detect a strong intention, a shift of the focus of your mind's eye into the weapon you're holding, for it to activate «Focus Fire»."
"Then your gun gets glowy, and you get a system assist?"
"Nope. Rather, you get a system un-assist."
Klein turned to him, confused. "That... doesn't make any sense."
"Instead of the calculations the engine normally does to determine the trajectory of the bullet, the ones that give you the green reticule, it makes the shot follow its «True Trajectory». Even more important, it makes the bullet impact do «True Physical Damage»."
"...«True Trajectory»? «True Physical Damage»? You've lost me there."
"Put simply, the bullet goes exactly where it's aimed. No random number generation choosing a spot in a circle. The engine looks at where your gun is pointing, the physical properties of the bullet, wind and air condition, and gravity. That's it. When it hits, the damage it does isn't calculated from the weapon stats. Instead, it becomes entirely physics-based; damage done is analogous to what would happen if the target was shot in real life.
"That boar, for instance. My shot went through where its vital organs were, so it died almost instantly. If I hit its brain, it would have died even faster. If I hit its leg, it probably wouldn't have killed it, but it might have given it a status effect disabling its leg.
"Another example: let's say you find a metal plate you want to get rid of. If you shot at it normally with a starting pistol, each shot would hurt the durability of the metal, as much as your personal and weapon stats determined. If you shot at it in «Focus Fire», the effect would be even less. The bullets would bounce off and do no durability damage whatsoever.
"If you brought some powerful weapon with armor-piercing ability, though, a single «Focus Fire» may destroy the metal completely, or do a large amount of durability damage and pass through, maybe hitting something on the other side."
Klein took a few moments to process this.
"What if... you used «Focus Fire» on another player?"
"If it's outside of safe zones, it'd have the effect you expect. A level-one player could, in theory, kill a level-one-hundred player in a single shot, if they weren't wearing good armor. When it's used, «Focus Fire» makes skill points irrelevant."
Klein was aghast. "That's... ridiculous! It's such a... shooter-y mechanic. They can't pollute an MMO with something like this..."
"Honesty, I think it's brilliant. In this genre, things often devolve into a brainless grind of numbers. This element keeps the game... pure. It changes the deciding factor from numbers to pure, real skill."
"I guess so..." Klein responded.
Kirito took a seat in the short grass. Out to the west, the sun, not visible for most of the day, was setting. Orange and red hues washed over the landscape. The normally dull-gray surface of the ceiling, the bottom of the next floor, looked colorful, even. The massive pillars along the rim of the world that held up the second floor stood like silent sentinels against the sun, their shadows cast across huge swaths of land. It was amazingly scenic, unbelievably beautiful for a make-believe world.
Klein set down his new shotgun and took a seat beside him. "It's brilliant, isn't it?"
"What is?"
Klein gestured grandiosely with both his arms. "All this! I still can't really believe it. We're inside the freaking game! You might be used to it, but this is my first «FullDive». I think we were really lucky, being born in this era. People would have killed to get their hands on this technology a decade ago."
"Mmm."
"I was lucky to get one of the ten thousand first edition copies, too. You were ten times luckier, though, getting into the beta test... I hear they only let a thousand people in!"
"Huh. I guess you're right. Haven't really given that much thought."
Klein picked up his shotgun again, testing differing grips and watching his aiming reticule. "So... how far did you make it in the beta?"
Kirito pulled his pistol from its holster, and then swiped downwards with his right hand to open his menu. With a speed reflecting his experience, he navigated to the «Field Cleaning» option and tapped it, activating an easy quick-time-event sequence. A thin white progress bar appeared over his gun.
"Over a couple of months, only floor 8."
He lightly tapped a translucent white circle, and the progress bar decreased in length.
"This time though, it'll take just one month."
Klein watched him play the cleaning mini-game. "You're really into this, aren't you?"
A set of three circles appeared, and Kirito tapped each of them away. The progress bar was cut in half.
"In the beta... Castle Carnation became my life. It was all I thought about, day and night. It's a virtual world, but I feel more alive here than I do sometimes in the real one..."
Klein nodded thoughtfully. "That's pretty deep stuff..."
Five more white circles appeared. Kirito tapped them in a star pattern, earning a slight bonus to the effectiveness of the cleaning. The progress bar fully depleted, and the mini-game was over. He slipped the gun back into its holster.
"But I've got to log out for now. I ordered a pizza for 5:30, so I gotta eat it before it gets cold."
"Hah," Kirito said. "You were rather prepared, weren't you?"
"You bet," Klein boasted. "I'll be back once I've eaten."
He stood and flicked open his menu, but then thought of something. "Huh, why's that button grayed... Hey, Kirito, after this I'm meeting up with some friends of mine from another game. I could introduce you to them, and you could register them as friends. Then you could always send messages. How 'bout it?"
Kirito turned away slightly, scratching his head. "Uh... well..."
He wasn't really one for large groups. He'd ran without a party throughout all of the beta. Even in real life, there were only a few classmates of his that he considered friends, and even them he didn't know all that well.
But Klein was alright. He'd seemed rude and demanding at first, but he'd grown on Kirito. Any friends he has are probably decent people, Kirito thought.
"Alright," Kirito answered after a pause. "When do you think you'll-"
He turned back to face Klein, but Klein was no longer there. Where he'd been standing, there was only air, and a slight wind that unfolded the soft grasses where they'd sat.
"-be back?" Kirito finished softly. Had Klein already left? He guessed so.
"Sorry," Kirito mumbled, though what exactly he was sorry for, he wasn't sure.
"Breaker's been hit. Tokai datacenter is powerless. Any players routed through there should have been force-logged. Any news? Marc?"
"A few things, none of them good. Ten more confirmed deaths in the past twenty minutes..."
"Son of a... No verdict on the hacking, then?"
"It's our best guess, but there's no sign of intrusion. With this privilege de-escalation screwing up our administrator accounts, we can't pull detailed logs. In fact, we're locked out of almost all the «CC» data now."
"How? We have the physical servers, right?"
"They're custom servers, designed and built specifically to house and interface with «Cardinal». It's our own proprietary high-level operating system, with all user access linked to player accounts..."
"And this is a problem... why? If it's our own operating system..."
"None of the engineers here, myself included, had anything to do with the development of the current system. Kayaba was the main programmer for most of it, and he's not with us anymore. We tried extracting the logs, but, like I said, all data access is high-level. Everything's encrypted with a self-teaching top-down AI, the same one that handles game events. We wouldn't be able to hack in, not even in a hundred years. The only thing we've gotten out of it is hour-by-hour lists of online players and their locations. We didn't get those by pulling data, mind you: «Cardinal» is just exporting it out of the high-level partition for some reason."
"Okay, Marc... those files list online players, right? Get the five-o-clock list and the current list and compare them. Tokai was handling close to fifteen hundred players. If they got logged out safely..."
"Got it. Running a diff analysis... I've got about a thousand players reported to be in about the same location. None of them were standing in it when the five-o-clock list went out."
"Only a thousand? ... Five hundred players missing, then? They got moved within the game world?"
"That's right. That means, other than those five hundred, they're still connected to «Cardinal» somehow... «Cardinal» doesn't have some kind of protocol that shifts players to other hubs in case one shuts down, does it?"
"You're the server guy. Do you have bandwidth monitoring on the other nodes?"
"We should... Ohkawa, can you pull it up?"
"Okay, Marc, got it... Mishima's good... Sorachi's the same... Tokai's flat-lined, of course... Satagaya... yup... yup..."
"What's that node there? Niigata?"
"Oh god, you're right. There's not supposed to be a node in Niigata."
"Wait, really? We have a datacenter in Niigata, don't we?"
"That server was just prototype stuff we scrapped before final release. You know, the Alpha-Rho content? Management didn't like it. It's not supposed to be active! It's eating just enough bandwidth for a thousand players."
"So... «Cardinal» transferred them? Activated a dormant node and moved the players to it when it detected an eminent shutdown?"
"There were fifteen hundred on Tokai. Those five hundred, did they log out successfully?"
"Maybe «Cardinal» tried to transfer them but couldn't handle the sudden request influx? Tokai's power got cut pretty fast."
"This is nuts... If Kayaba were here, he'd know what to do..."
"Ohkawa! Marc!"
"What?"
"Updated information from Kikuoka. Hear this: fucking four-hundred ninety seven deaths confirmed over the past five minutes."
"...Four... hundred... ninety?!"
"Those players... that «Cardinal» tried to transfer to Niigata but couldn't when the power was cut..."
"Shit."
Kirito blinked several times, reacquainting himself with his surroundings. He was quite obviously back in the «Starting City» - specifically, the large, round plaza where players first logged in. The glass archways that ringed the area were unique and easily recognizable.
After Klein's sudden disappearance, Kirito had gone back to hunting. He'd been at it for just a few minutes when, suddenly, the sound of a bell tolling filled his ears. A blue light—the teleport effect, which he recognized from his time in the beta—had appeared around him, and when it had faded, he'd found himself where he was now.
All around him were other players, just as confused as he was. Some seemed to know more than others.
"Ah, they're making an announcement."
"About this annoying bug? Finally. I'm about to be late for a meeting..."
Kirito frowned. If this was a mere bug-fix, there wouldn't be need for a forced teleport. There was something odd going on.
He took a step towards those he'd overheard. "Hey, guys... sorry to bother you. What's this bug you're talking about?"
One of them put his hands on his hips and opened his mouth to explain. Before he could, a flashing red icon lit up a portion of the sky above, switching between two states. [Warning], it read. [System Announcement]. After a few cycles it fixated to the [System Announcement] state, and then duplicated itself, again and again and again, covering the entire plaza with a dome of the red tiles.
The edges of the dome lined up perfectly with the intricate crystal arches, fitting together as if the area had been designed specifically for the purpose.
Then, from the seams between the tiles, a viscous, red fluid began to seep down. Numerous streams of liquid merged together, balling up, manifesting into a recognizable form: the lofty red robes of a GM, a Game Master. But this GM had no face, instead, just a black void.
"Greetings, players," the figure said in a deep, booming voice. "Welcome to my world."
"My world?" Kirito muttered.
"You may have once known me as the man Kayaba Akihiko. At the moment, I am the sole entity that can control this world."
Players around him broke out in confused discussion.
"Kayaba?"
"Didn't he die?"
"Is it really him?"
"There's no way that's him, I saw the reports..."
An imposter?
The figure continued. "As you may have noticed, the logout button is missing from the main menu."
Kirito quickly swiped downwards with his right hand, navigating to the spot he remembered. Where the log-out button had been in beta, there was now just an empty, unresponsive tile. This was the bug? No one had been able to log out? Where had Klein gone off to, then?
"I assure you, players, that this is not a defect in the game. I will say that again. This is not a defect."
Huh?
"This is a feature of this game, «Castle Carnation». You cannot log out of «CC» yourselves. And no one on the outside can shut down or remove the NerveGear. Should this be attempted, the NerveGear will emit a pulse of microwave radiation, destroying your brain and ending your life."
What!?
"Seriously, dude?"
"Okay, it was funny for a little bit, but that's enough. I'm leaving."
A pair of players tried walking through one of the crystal archways, but were repelled by some kind of invisible barrier.
"Hey! We can't get out!"
Did the NerveGear really have the power to kill? The more Kirito thought about it, the more possible it seemed. The transmitters used to interface with the brain were serious hardware. If the safeties were removed... And the NerveGear's internal battery meant cutting the power would be ineffective...
"More specifically, the fulfillment of any of the following requirements will trigger the radiation pulse: removal of a power source for more than ten minutes, disconnection from the system servers for more than two hours, and any attempt to unlock, dismantle, or destroy the NerveGear. These conditions have been made known to the government and the general public. Unfortunately, the friends and family of several players have ignored this warning and attempted to remove the NerveGear. Additionally, Argus has attempted to log players out by disabling server banks, which proved unpredictable and ineffective. Regretfully, as a result, six hundred and twenty four players are gone forever, both from Aincrad and the real world."
Someone, somewhere in the plaza, released a shrill scream. Those immediately next to Kirito stood in various stages of shock and denial.
...Gone?! More than six hundred, already dead?
A sudden cold rushed over him.
...is Klein one of them?
Kirito pulled up his friends list to check on Klein's status, and was shocked to find it empty. Of Klein, there was no trace.
"As you can see, news organizations across the world are reporting heavily on all of this, including the deaths. Thus, you can assume that the danger of a NerveGear being removed is now minimal. Momentarily, in a time period I have provided, all of you will be transported to hospitals or similar facilities so that your physical bodies can be given the best treatment possible. I hope that you will relax, and attempt to clear the game."
Relax?! He expects us to relax, trapped in here forever, and just keep playing?
"But I ask you all to understand that this, «Castle Carnation», is no longer a simple game. It is... a second reality. This game no longer contains any method to revive players. If your HP reaches zero, your avatar will be gone forever. And, simultaneously..."
Kirito felt every muscle in his body tighten slightly.
"The NerveGear will destroy your brain."
Player death is real death. But «Castle Carnation» is about death. Why would anyone risk death to play the game? This can't be real.
"Players... there is only one means of escape: To complete the game. You are presently within «City Alpha», on the second-lowest level of Aincrad: Floor One. Make your way into the dungeon and defeat the floor boss, and you may advance to the next floor. Proceed upwards, across each floor, through each dungeon. Destroy the «Energy Nexus» on the final floor, Floor 101, and you will clear the game. All of you players who have survived to that point will then be logged out."
Over the gigantic figure's hand, a rotating 3-D figure appeared: a miniature «Aincrad». A thin red line traced through it, zigzagging through dungeons, running from the bottom of the model to the top, where it terminated at a pulsating red sphere.
"«Energy Nexus»!?" someone in the plaza shouted. "You... You're making that up!"
All one-hundred floors. Beat the game. Could it be done?
"But be warned. Your task is two-fold. Just as there exists an «Energy Nexus» far above on Floor 101, there exists an opposing «Nexus»... on Floor Zero, directly below you. If, for any reason, this «Nexus», YOUR «Nexus», is destroyed... the HP of every one of your avatars will be reduced to zero. You will have lost. And consequently, you will have died."
Our «Nexus»? We have to defend the «Nexus»? Against what?
"Finally, I leave you with a gift. It has been added to every player's item storage. Please see for yourselves."
Kirito briskly swiped open his menu, navigating to his inventory. Within, beside his spare magazines and miscellaneous beginning monster drops, he found a new item. It was labeled, plainly, «Mirror».
He tapped the button to convert it to an object, and it popped into his hand. Around him, other players did the same.
Without any warning, swirls of blue light erupted around him. His vision was completely obscured, and he felt disconnected from his body, just some errant soul floating in a mist of data.
When the blue faded, something felt off. He looked left and right, but saw much of the same around him. He looked up, and, indeed, the red hooded figure was still there. Then he looked down, into the mirror in his hand, and was shocked. The face looking back at him was not that of «Kirito the Adventurer», the hero for which he'd painstakingly toiled for hours to make just right. Instead, he stared into the delicate features of «Kirigaya Kazuto», 14 year old high schooler, with black hair, matching black eyes, and a thin facial structure that was less than completely masculine.
I'm... me?
This... this is reality now?
Someone overcame their shock. "What's the point of this?!" Others quickly joined in.
"Who do you think you are? You're not Kayaba, you idiot!"
"Explain yourself, you... you sick bastard!"
The figure either heard the cries or predicted what was on every player's mind. "Why, you ask? Is this a terrorist attack? Is he doing this to ransom us? Why, you are wondering, and how? How could the deceased Kayaba Akihiko, developer of the NerveGear, do all this?
"The 'how' does not concern you. Just know that every word I have spoken here is the absolute truth. This is not a terrorist attack or a ransom attempt. This project began with the name of «SAO». «SAO» was my vision and my dream. «Castle Carnation» is not «SAO», but all the same, my goal has been achieved. The NerveGear and this game exist for one reason: I aspired to create this world, and watch over it. Now, everything has been realized."
Realized. He's done this because the existence of this world is the reward in itself. He's taken his game and made it real.
"This ends the official tutorial for the Alpha division of «Castle Carnation». Players, I wish you luck."
The figure decomposed, its red fluid sucked back though the [System Announcement] tiles into some unseen void. Once not a drop of red remained, the tiles themselves vanished in an instant. Orange rays of sunset washed over the crystal-ringed plaza once more.
But everything was changed.
If... I die in the game... I'll die in real life...
Kirito sprinted away from the plaza, as fast as he could. Behind him, he heard voices begin to shout.
"This is a joke, right? Right? Some kind of joke!?"
"Stop this! I get it, we're all scared, ha-ha, now let us log out!"
"No! You can't do this! This is impossible!"
"I have to get to a meeting! I can't be late!"
"Someone! Someone do something!"
Pure pandemonium.
To the bottom left of Kirito's vision a small section of his view that displayed the name of the location he was currently in.
In the beta test, when he'd run down this very street, it had read «Starting City: First District». It had said that when he'd been here four hours ago as well.
But now, it read something different. «City Alpha: First District».
Not the «Starting City». «City Alpha».
Somewhere beneath Kirito's feet, in a place called Floor Zero, there was an «Energy Nexus». There'd been no mention of it in beta. Now, for all intents and purposes, its existence was keeping him alive.
And somewhere, far, far above him, on Floor 101, there was another «Energy Nexus»... according to the entity that had referred to itself as Kayaba Akihiko.
And Kirito believed him. Unexplainably, irrationally, he believed that what had spoken to them was truly Kayaba Akihiko. He had built this world, Aincrad. Who was to say he couldn't overcome death itself?
The destruction of that final «Nexus» was the key to his freedom; his freedom, and everyone else's. To reach that «Nexus», the game needed to be beaten. And if Kirito was good at anything, it was beating games.
At some point, Kirito's feet carried him over the city border into the fields beyond. Over a border that, ten minutes ago, had meant nothing, but now meant the difference between safety and life-threatening risk.
Klein... Klein is really gone...
There was a blue glow as a monster spawned on the path ahead of him. Kirito pulled his «Glock 19» from its holster, taking aim with one hand as he continued to run, not caring for the massive diameter of the green aim circle.
The blue faded, revealing a realistically-sized wolf, with patterned gray fur and solid orange eyes. It lowered its head and growled at him as he approached.
I'm going to conquer this world...
Kirito gathered his emotion, forcing it to coalesce, pumping his will into the weapon in his hand. The yellow aura of «Focus Fire» started to form around the pistol.
Because none of us deserve that fate...
The round green reticule vanished, and Kirito fired. The «Glock 19» flashed bright yellow, and a bullet sped forth, impacting the wolf directly between the eyes. Its HP dropped to zero in a fraction of a second, and Kirito dashed onwards without even waiting for the blue particles of its death to disperse.
to be turned into nothingness.
All around him was black. Pure, unadulterated, crushing darkness, blocking his every sense, restricting his every motion.
"Kirito?" Klein tried to call. There was no response, just more black, more dark, more absolute nothing. Not even the sound of his own voice reached his ears.
After some time, one thing revealed itself to him. Standing out from the darkness was a single text character, a faint dark gray against the inky background.
«ϱ». Rho.
Well, Klein thought to himself. I guess this bug's a little bit more serious than just a missing button.