Rain pattered dozens of umbrellas that moved side by side in opposing directions. The sound they made was like hundreds of little flicks onto a stretched plastic sheet, forming a chorus of noise and variety with the overhead clouds. Displays set within the exterior walls of office and commercial buildings were shining light onto the reflective plastics of the umbrellas, creating a party of color and faint sound from water-logged speakers embedded within the panels. The light they created was nothing but a pure color that showed onto the streets to provide either an eye-piercing glow or a beautiful hue of colors that was worthy of a photograph.
These displays that crowded exterior walls of commercial buildings were known as Weather Resistant Commercial Display Units (or WeaR-Comm Displays) and were supposedly the newest innovation in advertising and display technology. Everyone else saw them as pointlessly wasted electricity, but they had their benefits, if you could even call them that.
I wasn't one to try and point out the benefits of these nuisances, but they were pretty if you squinted.
It was just after 14:00 on Saturday, October 25th, and it was rainy as all hell, thanks to a recent weather event out at sea that brought in a bundle of warm air from near the equator.
Either way, it was just another day in Tokyo.
As I continued to make my way towards a specific bar disguised as a Cafe, I began to wonder how far my actions had taken me. I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the support of Kazuto and his family, but also for my own confidence in others. Oyogu was by my side the whole time in that game of death, but Kazuto was and still is one of my best friends. Suguha's nice, Asuna's one of the sweetest people I've ever met, Klein is… Klein, Agil's starting to remind me of home, and I'm starting to think that I can get used to this, even if I have such a bloodstained mind.
"Hey, Thomas!" I hear as I turn a corner into an alleyway. Before I realized it, I was face to face with Oyogu Sakana, the (oddly enough) woman who decided to stay with me through everything I faced.
Contrary to her name and beliefs, and possibly even facial structure at first glance, Oyogu is not actually Japanese, she's Russian. The story of how she got here is changed ever so slightly by Oyogu due to her being an infant at the time of her immigration, but from what I understand, the story is something as follows: Shortly after Oyogu was born, her mother was killed and her father was suspected of murdering her. To not force his child into an orphanage, he got a Yakuza friend to sneak Oyogu into Japan, where she was taken to a retiring Yakuza member to be raised into the person she is now, even if it meant some of her morals and jokes were… questionable.
"Oyogu, you're here. When did you get here?" I asked, looking to her side to see the Dicey Cafe owned and managed by Andrew Gilbert Mills, who goes by the alias "Agil" in VRMMORPGs and on forums scattered throughout the web. If there was a gaming forum, Andrew was probably on it, stalking it, or ignoring it due to its toxic nature.
Inside, I could see two figures sitting at a table. One of them had almost an entirely black outfit and the other seemed to have a red sports jacket of sorts on. I assumed there was a third one since they were both looking in the direction of the opposite side of the table. It was hard to tell who the supposed third person was, but the only way to find out was-
"Let's go inside," I offered, approaching the door with the ugly signage that said "closed" on the front of it. With a couple of quick knocks, those inside were not alerted to our presence, and I began to put away my umbrella in anticipation.
"Could have kept me from the rain, Thomas…"
"You were already here, how could I have done that?" I looked at Oyogu with an eye of suspicion, who suddenly had a warm light on the front of her figure. When I turned in the direction of the warm light, there was a candle burning in the hand of an old friend. Asuna Yuuki. I hadn't known Asuna for a time before SAO, but I called her an old friend due to an old association.
"Asuna."
"Thomas?"
An awkward moment passes… then I let myself in, just barely sliding past Asuna's chestnut hair. Oyogu follows after me after greeting Asuna. They smile and hug one another; girl code, I guess.
"Hey, bro. I'm here," I call out to Kazuto, wading over to his table to give him our usual handshake. We're best friends, but also brothers after all.
"Hey, 'Wall,'" I teased Andrew, who only gave me a twitch in his brow. I had a small chuckle, then sat down across from Kazuto. Oyogu then sat next to me.
This is the way things usually happened at IRL meetups between Kazuto's group of friends: I would sit opposite Kazuto and his friends, preferring to be by myself. On occasion, Lisbeth or Silica may take their place beside me, but that was a rare consideration from them. Their hearts were touched by Kirito, not me. I was truly the second pick.
The only exception to this rule was Oyogu. We had done so much together on the other side that she opted to often sit with no one else but me. Not to mention, we were both foreign blood, which may or may not have something to do with it…
"So, what was the topic of hand before we got here? OP Sword Skills, bounties, rare loot?"
"Yep, it was loot!" Kazuto began, "We're still holding off on Excalibur for now, but we've been seeing rumors floating around for another potentially rare sword out at sea. The only problem is that the quest-giver says you need a ship, which isn't even in the game as of now…"
"It's wild! How do they expect us to complete a quest without the requirements to do so?" Asuna pitched in, almost bewildered at the fact someone would program such a thing as an incompletable quest.
"Maybe they're teasing for something," I added after ordering a glass of tea and a bowl of meatloaf from Agil. It was going to come in its due time, which meant I had more time to talk before stuffing my face with food.
"Did the quest-giver ever say what the reward would be? Specifically, I mean."
"No, all we know is that it's supposed to be an immense sword with the power to stop Excalibur itself, not through strength, but speed," Suguha explained, taking a sip of tea herself.
"Well, that sounds like one hell of a bet… Maybe we can put those two swords to the test. What do you think, Kazu?" I challenged Kazuto with a phantom grin and a subtle arch in my eyebrows. He smirked back at me and grinned.
"Why do you two always want to fight," Asuna questioned. "You have tournaments to put you both to the test, you know? Jeez, you two are so dense…" She rubbed her hand on her forehead in a tense expression. She clearly didn't know how to see me and Kazuto wanting to fight each other all the time. To be fair, we were now quote-unquote "brothers," but only by last name and family status. We weren't actually related by blood, even if the all-black hair of the Kirigaya family could throw some people for a loop.
Kazuto laughed at Asuna's tension before putting her at ease with a hand on her shoulder, then turning to me.
"Haha… But what about you, Thomas? What has Zenith been doing in that one game you play? GLO was the acronym for it, right?"
"Gun Life Online, that's a new one… No, it's called Gun Gale Online; GGO. And it's not just me playing, Oyogu joins me pretty regularly," I begin to explain before being stopped by Oyogu.
"Y'know, maybe you should explain what GGO is in the first place?" Oyogu pressed me with her question, grabbing me by the chin to look me dead in the eye with a smirk. "They've no idea, you know… Give them the run-down, okay?"
My only reaction to her was to gently grab her hand and take it off my chin. Didn't I say she had her antics or something? Anyway…
"Yeah… So," I began, turning back to the group. "Gun Gale Online is one of the most hardcore games I've ever played, more so than some shooting games on flatscreen. Think CS and some V-named game. Anyway, GGO's a game styled after cyberpunk-dystopias and all that come with it–neon lights, shitty lifestyle, large gaps between the poor and the rich. It's like real life, but worse in every fashion, and guns are the norm."
At the same time that I finished the first part of my explanation, my bowl of meatloaf and glass of tea arrived. Andrew coughed for me to continue after I gawked at the food with a slightly agape mouth.
"Essentially, everyone's got the same goal to be the number one player on every leaderboard possible. Oyogu and I actually share some podium leaderboard spots, specifically in Squad Battles and the big quarterly tournament, but that's for another time. Not to mention, GGO's a lot more complex than something like ALO."
"How so?" Suguha interjected. Everyone seemed pretty entertained by my summary of GGO, so this was going well for me.
"Well… For as many people who can effectively slice a sword, even if just a little bit, Gun Gale Online, as you'd assume, has guns in the game. The complexity comes from the sheer number of guns you have to learn before you find the right weapon for you. You have to memorize the location of the charge handle in battle so you don't miss it, you need to learn how to aim with accuracy and precision under pressure, not to mention the sheer litany of firearms to master, especially with some of their… complexities… And the fact that there are multiple different ammunition types you can't mix up, as well as the inclusion of laser guns; it's a mess." I sighed at the end, taking a swig of my drink before Kazuto asked a question.
"You said that GGO's super hardcore, right? What does that mean?"
I slapped my drink down on the table and took a bite of meatloaf. Oh… home, I immediately thought as the taste began to render in my mouth, then quickly swallowed to answer my 'brother's' question.
"It's hardcore in the sense that nearly everyone's a try-hard; trying hard to win, trying hard to get payouts to cover the monthly connection fee, stuff like that. Oh, and speaking of payouts, some people play the game for a living–no sponsors or outside brands intervening. We usually just call them 'Pro's'."
"Really? How would they do it, because they can't just give you back Japanese Yen, right?" Asuna questioned, tilting her head to the side as I scored another bite of oatmeal.
"You're right, they can't: Japanese Banking Law doesn't permit that, so they have to use a digital currency that's tied to the price of one Yen. As much as it's pretty sketchy, there are enough kiosks in the area, so it's convenient to transfer the currency back to Yen for a slight percentage fee. So, if you can make enough to foot the bill and get some scratch on top, it's like playing video games for a living."
The entire group lit up with a bit of excitement–even Andrew, though he was far off to the side. "Really? That sounds fun, but also really tedious, because you wouldn't get a lot of money from just hunting mobs, right?"
I scoffed after hearing her question and took another sip of my drink.
"Funny you mention money-making and hunting… Oyogu and I hunt player bounties in-game. Every player has a bounty on their head, starting at about 1,000 Credits, and working its way up to the top spot of about ten million or so credits. I've managed to take out a guy who had a bounty of 25,000,000 credits. I think that amount converted to about 250,000 Yen, minus fees."
"Two-hundred-fifty-thousand?!" The entire group shouted at the same time, which scared the living hell out of me.
"Right… I forgot to mention… I'm one of the top players–top three to be exact, the only way I stand out is in my play-style and outfit."
"How so?" Kazuto asked, finally managing to sit down after the shock that was the amount of 250,000 Yen.
"Well..," I thought out loud for a moment, then continued. "The thing with GGO is that most people look the same, in the sense that they have the same style of outfit; which is usually some futuristic 'Substance over Style' military gear. It's some of, if not the most practical gear in the game, some of which even have adaptive camo to blend into the environment, but it's super expensive. On the other hand, Oyogu and I run… Well, let's just say Style tops all else. We wear outfits with lights on them, mainly because it looks cool, but it also has a significant stat-bump as well, and they're just as expensive as the military stuff…"
"Hey, don't you remember that we got two of those jackets through Monster Drops? We had to kill like two massive gargoyle-style monsters to get those jackets, which took a super long time…" Oyogu commented and then continued to add more. "What he means is that they sell for a really high value on the in-game player auctions, usually well over 50,000,000 credits from someone trying to get the highest stats possible. But despite the super high price and stat bump, the meta's currently centered around those adaptive camo suits…"
"Good Lord what I would do to make the meta less shitty," I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. Once I released my fingers, I looked back up at the group.
"Oh, remember how you guys found Excalibur before anyone else–supposedly?" I asked Kazuto, who nodded in response.
"We found it while looking into an upside-down pyramid while we fell into Jotunheim, why do you ask?"
"Well," I started, pulling a slight smirk as if I were a cat that knew it had its prey in its grasp… "I may or may not have found the supposed location of an item so powerful, it can make you travel at about half the speed of light…"
The table collectively gasped as I pulled out my phone to show a screenshot of an in-game CRT monitor. The picture was blurry due to the monitor's low resolution. Still, in the image, you could see what looked to be a mechanical spinal implant surrounded by a mass of displays and staging equipment. The light from all the equipment nearly made the image mostly white, but it had a hint of teal in the image, likely due to a failing camera sensor in the game.
"Woah… what's it called?" Kazuto asked, smiling at the potential power of the in-game item.
"It's called a Vladlenivetch, it's a permanent spinal implant…"
"Permanent? As in you can't remove it?" Kazuto puzzled.
"Exactly, and it's gonna be mine…"