Hello! I'm back! Here is this weeks chapter! I hope you all enjoy it! Remember. NO FLAMES!
An hour had passed, and the sky was getting darker, and more colorful. The group had headed out to the fields to watch the sunset.
In the Northern fields, there were floating islands that hovered several yards off the ground. Small streams of water cascaded down the rims and to the pond they were sitting next. The pink sky, the islands, and the amazingness of it all was so real.
"Everything is so real." repeated Payge.
"It's amazing," said Maddy.
That day, they bought some supplies and knick knacks to look at. Payge bought a pair of red earrings, Aidan got a gold chain necklace to match her glasses, and Emily surprised them all by getting six cream puffs-one for each of them.
As they ate the yummy cream puffs and drank in all of the beauty of the world, Aidan's eyes grew wide and she pointed to the distance. "What are those?"
There were silhouettes of some creatures about a half mile away. They looked like boars.
"Are they friendly?" Aidan asked.
"In most cases, boars are pretty mean." replied Maddy.
Payge pointed to another thing in the distance. "More like what is that." she said.
It was a tall gray tower that seemed to go into the sky forever. It looked huge.
"I think… I think it's attaching this floor to the next floor." Natalie guessed.
Taylor looked up into the dimming sky. "I don't see no floor." she said.
"I wonder what it's like." Maddy remarked.
"Can we go there?" Aidan suggested.
Emily stared at them. "You guys we have to defeat the boss first. Which I don't want to do." she stated.
Natalie shuddered a little bit. "Fighting the monster is probably so scary. Because you can die." she said.
"We can die?" said Aidan. "Well, I mean, yeah, we probably die because this is a game."
"Yeah. But it doesn't effect your real body whatsoever." Natalie reassured her.
"Then why be scared?"
"How about about you go face those boars over there? Even though you know you won't literally die, it's still scary. Like a rollercoaster." Emily pointed out. "But what happens when you do die?"
Natalie shrugged her shoulders. "You respawn, but might lose some of your stats."
"So can I level up?" asked Taylor.
Natalie nodded. "Yes. For instance, when you kill a mob you get money and better statistics in fighting and strength. The more you fight, the quicker and stronger you will be. But this game isn't just about fighting. You can level up in cooking, sewing, blacksmithing, almost anything."
"Whoa! So I can learn how to cook?" Payge said.
"Well, virtually!"
"Yes!" said Aidan. "I am so going to max out my sewing skills."
"Can I level up in fangirling?" asked Maddy.
"I wish!"
They all laughed.
"Well we should probably get going. You know, logout." said Natalie. "We can play in the morning."
"Now?"
"... yeah."
They stood up and opened their menu dashboards. "You guys logout first. I'll be last." said Natalie.
"No, I will be last." Emily said.
"Emily-"
"Natalie. Listen to your elders." she said firmly. Nobody laughed this time.
"Okay. Well, where is it?" said Taylor.
"Yeah, I can't find it…" Aidan followed.
Emily frowned. "What are you guys talking about?"
"The logout button!" Taylor shouted.
"There's no need to yell. It should be right… wait, what?" Emily said with surprise. "Maddy? Do you have it? It should be at the very bottom of the menu."
Maddy checked. "It's not there."
"Payge? Natalie?"
"No."
"Nope!"
"..."
There were a few seconds of the silence. The only sound was the water stream pooling into the pond.
And then a different sound came. The gonging of a bell. The sound rung across the land, distant and deep. The sound of it seemed to give off a vibe none of them liked.
"Why is it ringing?" questioned Payge.
Suddenly, everything around them dissolved into pixels. And then everything came back, but they were in a different place. They were forced to teleport back to the main square of the town of beginnings.
But the main square seemed different. It was darker, and there was a ton of players around them. Something was definitely wrong.
"Is everyone okay?" asked Aidan.
"We're fine." Emily replied. "But why are we here? What's happening?"
Around them, people were teleporting. And all of them looked confused.
"This wasn't planned," realized Natalie.
"I really don't like this…" Payge said nervously.
"What is that?" Maddy said.
"What?"
"Above us."
There was a red thing floating in the sky. It looked like a dashboard that said WARNING on it. It was also blinking.
"What does this mean?" asked Taylor. "Is something wrong with the game?"
"LOOK!" someone shouted from the other end of the square. They all looked up. The blinking red WARNING had stopped blinking. Suddenly, it multiplied, and soon the whole sky above them could not be seen. There was just a big dome of red WARNINGs.
And then, some redder and horrible leaked from the cracks of the dashboards. It looked like blood, but it did not hit the ground. It constructed itself into a giant mass that crackled with electricity. Soon, it formed into what seemed like a giant floating cloak.
Murmurs of worry erupted in the crowd.
"Who is that?"
"What the-"
"Is that the game master?"
"Why doesn't he have a face?"
"Is this an event?"
Suddenly, a melodic male voice boomed from the cloak: "Attention, players. I welcome you to my world.
My name is Akihiko Kayaba, and of this moment, I am in control of this world."
Akihiko Kayaba. He is the creator of SAO!
Questions were setting off like fireworks in all of their brains. Payge and Taylor glanced at each other, and Aidan hugged her sister. Maddy and Natalie stared at Akihiko Kayaba with solemn faces.
"I am sure some of you have already noticed an item missing from your main menu; the logout button. I assure you, this is not a defect in the game."
"What?!" They all said.
"I repeat, this is not a defect in the game."
More whispers and worried murmurs erupted again in the crowd. "No wonder we couldn't log out!" Maddy said.
"If it wasn't a defect, what was it?" Natalie asked worriedly.
Akihiko Kayaba spoke again in his steady voice: "This is how Sword Art Online was meant to be. You can not log out of SAO, and no one can remove the NerveGear from you head. If anyone attempts to do so, the NerveGear will discharge a microwave signal into your skull. It will destroy your brain, and end your life."
A stone seemed to drop into the pit of Natalie's stomach. This meant… if her mom realized they were playing the game late, she would try to take off the NerveGear.
Her mom was going to kill them all!
Aidan stopped hugging her sister. Her face had pure terror on it. "We can't get out?"
No one said anything.
"Despite my warning, some family and friends of players have attempted to remove the NerveGear, an unfortunate decision to say the least. As a result, we have 213 less players than what we had to begin with. They have been deleted from Aincrad as well as the real world."
"213?!" Taylor shrieked. "213 people DIED?"
Everyone in the square was buzzing. Some people were shouting at Akihiko Kayaba, some people were whispering to their friends with fear.
A bunch of floating dashboards appeared around the giant cloak man. When they looked closer they were actually news headlines and articles. "As you can see, international media around the clock have coverage of everything, including the deaths." Emily saw on one of the articles there was a picture of a girl crying, probably for her dead relative. Another headline screamed: Death Count Rises with Online Game Incident.
"I hope this brings you comfort as you try to clear the game. But it is important to remember the following: you can not revive someone who has died in the game. If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be deleted from the system forever, and your NerveGear will ultimately destroy your brain."
The whole square was silent, and every single face was staring up at the creator of Sword Art Online.
"There is only one way for you all to escape; you must clear the game. Right now, you are gathered on floor one, the lowest floor of Aincrad. If you defeat the boss in the dungeon, you may advance to the next floor. Defeat the boss on floor one hundred, and you will clear the game."
"But what's the point?" whispered Emily.
Everyone around them seemed to be thinking the same thing.
"Right now, you are all wondering why, why would Akihiko Kayaba, creator of Sword Art Online, do this? Ultimately, my goal was a simple one; to create a world with my design and my choice of fate. As you can see, I have achieved my goal.
"This marks the end of the tutorial, and the official launch of Sword Art Online. Players, I wish you the best of luck."
Then the cloak started to glitch and fall apart. Soon, it had fully disappeared. The warning signals above them also disappeared.
And it was just them. Just them and a game of death.
Here we go. Now shit starts getting interesting. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! See you all next time!