Welcome to my world

FL 2, Outside Urbus

Dec. 8, 2022 2:27 am

"Death has come for you, PKer." I say as I deal the finishing blow with my Scythe. I bend down, put my hand over the PKer slowly close his eyes. " Forgive him Kami-sama, may he rest in peace."

Player killing or PKing for short is something most MMO players will experience at some point or another. In most MMOs player killing is considered more of a nuisance. It's high level players picking on the weaker players or players killing each other for personal gain like loot. In a normal MMO a killed player would just respawn in the nearest town or safe zone, but Sword Art Online is different.

Sao was supposed to be a revolutionary piece of gaming technology. The world's first virtual reality MMO, but instead it became a game of death and despair.

It's a game where there is no respawn, where dying doesn't simply mean game over. Death means death, it means that the system will fry your brain and kill you IRL as well. This of course means that PKers are murderers. Killing people with no remorse, under the pretense that there is no actual proof.

That's where I come in, I have taken it upon myself to stop player killing in Sword Art Online. The target that now laid dead at my feet had been an elusive one. I didn't want to kill him, but I had been left with no choice. I gave him options to stop attacking players , but he didn't listen, he had to be stopped. He was a lvl 6 player by the name of KoH that prayed on players level 4 and below.

I look over at the girl who was almost KoH's next victim, "Are you ok?" I ask, offering her a hand to help her up.

"I think so, thank you for saving me!" She replies, grabbing my hand.

"Your welcome, I couldn't let an innocent player be killed." I say as I remove my hood."I'm Mizore"

"Saya." She was a girl with short black hair and bright red eyes. She was dressed in simple red basic armor, with a katana. She looks to be around 16, if I had to guess.

After saving her, we talked for a while and I found Saya to be an incredibly interesting individual. She was quickly becoming my friend and I was even considering her to be my second in command for what I was planning to do.

"Saya I'm trying to form a group to stop player killing. Would you like to join me?"

"Of course, I will join you, you did save my life after all." Saya replies with a smile.

Hearing her was a happy moment, it meant that I would have a friend in this death game. I look up into the sky as my mind starts to wander back to the day this death game began.

My room, Nov. 6, 2022 12:55

5 minutes that was all that remained till Sword Art Online launched. It was the world's first virtual reality MMO RPG. Created by Kayaba Akihiko, a true genius. After waiting in line for a week I had one of the 10,000 copies released. Mom wasn't happy that I had to skip school to do so, looking back now she was probably right.

I put on my nerve gear helmet, signed in and did all the necessary calibrations. Which had mainly consisted of touching my body so the system could get a feel for it. The system said it was necessary to play the game. I didn't complain much considering I had just wanted to play.

That way I would be ready the moment they did. I was currently laying on my bed with the nerve gear already on. Staring up at the black visor of the nerve gear helmet. A little clock in the top left corner displaying the current time of 12:57

After what seems like an eternity, probably the longest 3 three minutes of my life, the clock finally reads 13:00. That's when I said those words, those words that would change my very reality, "Link Start."

The screen suddenly flashed a multitude of colors, it was beautiful, followed by a few green circles and then the login screen. The game had let me create an account beforehand and create my character, but the start button had been grayed out until now. Since the nervegear was controlled by your thoughts, I simply willed it to hit the okay button.

Big bold black words appear on a white background that simply say in English," Welcome to Sword Art Online!"

There is a flash blue light before I blank out, and then start to see the gates of a very large city. I look down at my hands then at my body. I had made my chest a little bit bigger, but not by much. I figured it would take some getting used to my new body.

The Town Of beginning

I rushed around town, amazed at how real this world is. I run around taking in all the sights from the npc merchants selling goods, the smells coming from all the way to bakeries and restaurants that dot the market street. The smells coming from those restaurants were divine. Not only did the world look real but it smelled real as well.

I looked around till I spotted a weapon merchant npc. I slowly browsed his inventory, looking over each weapon. I eventually settled on a simple two handed spear, I wanted a different weapon at the time but the spear would do for now. I picked up the weapon and paid the npc merchant. A small box popped up in front of me saying, "Skill Acquired 《 Two-handed Spear 》,Combat Skill Acquired 《 Forward Thrust 》."

Now with a weapon in hand I started running straight for the town gate, ready to fight some monsters. As I ran forward quickly trying to get outside the city walls, someone steps into my path causing me to run into them. I looked up to see a girl, she had light brown hair and eyes that matched her hair. Hanging from her waist was a simple dagger. " I... I'm sorry, it's my fault. I wasn't watching where I was going." I apologized.

"You have nothing to be sorry about, you meant no harm. Hi, I'm Argo." She replied.

"Nice to meet you Argo," I replied. " I'm Mizore."

I quickly pulled my menu and scrolled through it, looking through the list of nearby players until I found Argo. I quickly press the button to send her a friend request, which she accepts. " Anyway it was nice meeting you Argo I'm gonna go grind for a bit till I have to log out."

"Mind if I join you?"

Field outside of town, a few minutes later

"Take that, you baka pig!" I yelled as I ran a pig straight through with my spear. It shattered like glass and disappeared. A little box popped up in midair, signaling the defeat of the small boar. It said that I gained 22 Exp, Points and 100 col.

"Your turn argo" I say, stepping back allowing my new friend to make a move.

The Pig and her both had a staredown for a moment before the pig charged, but Argo was ready. She quickly dodges the pig gracefully, almost as if she could predict its movements.

"That was impressive Argo, you look as if you fought these enemies before."

Argo rubbed the back of her head sheepishly," yeah I was part of the beta. I remember these monsters."

"Wow! You're lucky, they say only a thousand people got that privilege. I applied myself but wasn't lucky enough to be picked. Anything useful you can tell me about the game?"

"Well I'm sure a few things have changed since beta, but I don't mind. I will help any way I can."

"So the game has no magic right?" I asked.

Argo nods yes, " that is true this game has no magic. Well at least not Magic that players can use in combat. There are very limited magic items like crystals with teleportation magic, but that's really the extent of the magic in the game. The game makes up for this however I'm having a limitless number of skills. There are the obvious skills like combat and weapon techniques, but there are also skills that relate to real world stuff, like cooking, sewing, blacksmithing…"

Thinking back to the moment I Acquired the spear, it said I'd gained skill forward thrust. I hold my weapon in hand and think about the skill as I charge forward. The game seems to take control of my movement for a slight second as my arms are thrust forward. My spear starts to Glow slightly before thrusting forward into a pig.

"Whoa, Nice one Mizore."

Argo and I trained for the last few hours, but despite that we had only gotten about halfway to level two. She had given me many pointers, as well as telling me stories of certain things she'd experienced while in beta.

I pulled up my in-game clock which read "17:25." It was getting really late, Mom was probably done making dinner by now.

"Argo, I think it's time I logged out now." I scrolled down the menu to look for the logout button, only to find it missing. " ummm Argo, where is the logout button? I can't find it.

"You're probably not looking in the right spot." She said as she waved her hand to pull up her own menu.

"No, it's not there."I replied as Argo suddenly Agro started to glow. " Hey , you're glowing."

"So are you. I think it's a forced teleport." She replied as we both disappeared.

Town of Beginnings, Plaza

Argo was right, it was a forced teleport. I was now in the town plaza. I looked around and saw all of the other players, looking confused. Then suddenly the sky turned red, little words that said warning and system announcement appeared in English. As someone who had played countless MMOS before SAO, I knew something like this was some kind of event and considering this was launch day, it was highly likely.

Then the red sky started to drip, it almost looked like the sky started bleeding. The drops of blood formed a brown robe. But the weird thing about it, there was no one wearing it. "Attention players, I welcome you to my world." His world, then this faceless figure is...

" I am Akihiko Kayaba, and from this point on I am the one in control of the game. I guess many of you have already noticed that the logout button is missing from the main menu. This is not a game glitch. I repeat... this is not a glitch, but an original feature of Sword Art Online."

"What an original feature, how but I would not be able to log out being an original feature?" Someone yells from the sea of ten thousand players, but Kayaba keeps speaking.

"You can not log yourselves out of the game and no one outside can shutdown or remove the NerveGear. Should this be attempted, the transmitter in the NerveGear will send a powerful microwave through your skull, destroying your brain and thus ending your life."

He could not be serious, a game, where I can't logout, a game where I had a chance of dying. What the Hell was Kayaba thinking? The roaring angry players echo throughout the plaza. Players screaming how this was unjust and tell kayaba couldn't seriously keep them here against their will, but their screams fell on deaf ears as he continued speaking.

" Unfortunately the friends and families of some of the players failed to heed my warnings, as a result 213 players are now gone from both Aincrad and the real world."

Images of various news reports of Deaths caused by the NerveGear appeared in the sky around Kayaba. The question was were these news reports accurate either way my views on Kayaba we're starting to change.

"As you can see various news networks are reporting this, so the threat of forced removal has been reduced. So I want you to relax, and focus on clearing the game. Also please make note that there is no way to respawn when your HP reaches Zero. If this happens your avatar will be erased from the system, and simultaneously the NerveGear will fry your brain."

No respawn, what kind of a sick sick game was he playing. I couldn't die here. Why should I die just because of some game?

" There is only one way out, you must clear the game. Right now, you are on floor 1 The lowest level of Aincrad. If you can get through the dungeon and defeat the boss you can advance to the next floor. Defeat the boss of floor 100 and you will clear the game."

"What the hell!? How are you gonna do that!? It seems Impossible!" I yelled.

Kayaba just ignored me. "Lastly, I placed a little present in the item storage of every player. Please, take a look."

I brought up my menu, and went to my items. In my items I saw a mirror. I brought the mirror out of storage and stared into it. Then I heard Screaming, I looked to see all the players starting to glow. I looked back in my mirror and saw not my avatar but me, the real me.

"Argo you okay?" I looked around for my new friend, but she was gone. In her place I saw someone that looked similar to who looked just a little younger. "Agro?"

"Mizore?" She replied. "How does the game know what we look like?" Asuna asked.

"It must have been those calibrations it made us do." I replied.

Kayaba started speaking again. "Many of you are probably wondering, why? Why would Akihiko Kayaba, creator of Sword Art Online do this? Ultimately my goal is a simple one, the reason I created Sword Art Online was to control the fate for a world of my design. As you can see I have achieved my goal. This marks the end of the tutorial and official start of SAO. I wish you all the best of luck." With that Kayaba started turning back into the blood like form and then disappeared.

FL 2, Urbus, 2:40 am

"Mizore, Mizore, Hello Mizore?" Saya's voice brings me out of my day dreaming.

"Sorry Saya, I was just remembering how this Death game started. I guess, I was daydreaming."

"Day Dreaming? But, it's the middle of the night?" She asks. At least she had a sense of humor "Do you ever think we will clear this game? I mean it is a month into the game and we've only cleared the first floor. Already almost 4,000 of us have died. Is there really any hope?" She asks.

" Never give up hope. I will never give up till this game is cleared." She just smiles at me as I finish speaking.

"So, what should we call our new anti-pk guild?" Saya asks.

"I don't know? What do you think of Saya?" I ask.

"Well, with that black robe and scythe you look like... that's it! Let's call our guild shinigami." She says to me.

"Shinigami huh? I like the sound of that. Then Shinigami it is, our mission is to protect the weak players from those who would harm them." She gave me a thumbs up.

She then starts speaking."This could be our motto. Pkers beware, Death has come for you. These are the last words you shall hear, before the shinigami comes for you.".