Author's Note: Hello everyone, here I will broadly talk about the way I will write this fic: First of all, the major changes are in worldbuilding and characters, mainly for plot fixing and to better fit the type of story that I want to tell, but the overall plot will only be changed slighty, and again, to better suit the new story. Without further ado, there it is and I hope you enjoy it, feedback will always be appreciated!
PS: I noticed that most people that come reading this fic give up in this first chapter, so it's worth nothing you can skip this one if you prefer, it's mostly plot setup, if you're only interested in the "death game" part, that starts on Chapter 4;
Hello, my name is Kazuto Kirigaya, better known as "Kirito", and my story is on Earth. The Earth of the year 2088, the previously predicted collapse of humanity never happened, rather the opposite, humanity thrived, and then shrinked to half the population, 4.5 billion people, and everyone has a comfortable like but lacking true excitement.
This is my world. More precisely the outskirts of the district of Akihabara, in Tokyo, Japan, where I live. I am more known by my online friends by the nickname "Kirito" (a junction of my two names), and I am 19 years old, a NEET in every sense of the term, my looks included, which I never cared much; 1,72 m tall with a skinny, slightly muscular body, straight black medium-sized hair with a messy haircut, black eyebrows, half-open, tired eyes (most likely for spending whole nights awake playing on my PC) with dark pupils, a rather inexpressive slim mouth, and a chin barely covered by facial hair. Most of the time I just wear shorts and a t-shirt, or a dark grey hoodie, navy blue jeans, and old Nike shoes when I am not home, and in these rare occasions, I just stay quiet, walking fast and talking only when necessary, surely not a social butterfly, but back in home, when my older sister Suguha, from who I own everything, I do whenever I can to make her happy.
She is 25 years old, a very successful woman, she works for a company that develops and sells a new OS for server management designed for big companies, and her became a key member of it, obviously is paid well, and with it, she sustains herself, me and our home, modest-sized, but it has a kendo training room in the back.
It was from our mother... Her name was Midori Kirigaya, and I don't remember much of my father, he died in a car accident when I was 2 years old, and then my mother of cancer when I was 13, I still miss her, but it was tougher for my sister... she had to start to work to sustain both of us when she had barely started her college period, and after that she started to treat me more like she was my mother, taking care of me pretty well, and she downright refuses my offerings to find a job to help her, she says "Kazuto, please follow your dreams, I am more than happy to work in your place to help you to do so". There also was that time when she kissed me on my 18th birthday, but she doesn't like to remember that, and neither I. Her personality is a glaring contrast of mine, she always is very energetic, lovely, talkative and helpful in her job, but here she likes to relax, being quiet and calm.
Her appearance surely calls the attention of the people around her, having 1,76m, black medium hair with a Chanel haircut and 3 decorative red clips in the top right side of the head, slim black eyebrows, feminine eyes with dark green pupils, and slim lips always smiling, and a nice body, I'll admit. When working, she wears a light office attire, and in home, she just wears a white sleeveless shirt, black shorts and green crocs, or a red robe with pink sleepers when it's cold, and her kendo outfit when training, which its her favorite hobby, she trained since she was a child by the influence of our grandfather and always was quite good at it, even winning some third and second places in championships across Japan when she was younger. She also tried to make me went into it after his death, it is an interesting sport and I kinda like to train with her when she calls for my company in the training room, but eh, not for me.
However, when Suguha is working, I am totally dedicated to my main hobby, online gaming. It's what the I love the most in this world and what I always did since young, firstly heavily monitored by my sister, but then she started to work hard and gave me a PC for my studies, I jumped straight up to online gaming, more precisely MMO Action RPGs, my favorite genre. There i could be the person that I could never be in real life, having both friends and admirers, my strength and speed wasn't limited by my body, only my will, and most importantly, I could be truly free to make my own destiny.
The world in most MMOs were that way, huge, open and surrounded by nature and fantastical elements and creatures, where I and others could work and battle our way into greatness while living a natural life while cooperating and having relations with each other, totally different of the harsh reality, whose most of us lives anti-social lives in closed cities without any contact with the nature, and only here I can have the life I want. So, I spend most of my time on my PC playing these games and the rest talking with my friends from these games.
However, today I'm going to stay away from my PC, me and my sister are going to the center of Akihabara since she promised to buy to me some new parts to his PC and we're also gonna see some figures. But first, she needs to go fix some quick issues in her job, so here I am in the hobby waiting for her, but unfortunately dumb me left my phone in home charging, so the only thing left for me is to read one of these tech magazines they left here... They still make those? Anyway, let's pick the most recent one, and right in the cover, what we have here, the NervGear?
I had heard of this before. Supposedly, this is a new VR headset made by a company that had some expertise developing neural analysis tech and it works in a totally different manner than the previous headsets. Rather than having screens and headphones to simulate the world and sensors and motion controllers to register the player inputs, the NervGear makes everything work connecting itself to the players brain, capturing the brain commands to the body (making the user unable to move while using it) and translating them to game inputs for the PC running the game, then takes the game audiovisual feedback and sends it to the brain, who interprets this as signs coming from the eyes, ears, nose and even skin, creating the perfect illusion... (and making its competitors obsolete) Ok, here it talks about the developing process, how they thought of putting a battery for wireless play but it was very unreliable and had to be taken off, it also talks about the first year of the NervGear in the market, how it was performing kinda bad and below the creators expectations, but despite some would think, it was not the price point that was holding it back, huh, it was the lack of good software developed exclusively for it, but this was close to change, since there was a game being developed for it all the way back off the development process of the own NervGear, being headed by a legendary developer, and it was his biggest project since then. His name? Kayaba Akihiko. The game? Survival Art Online, a MMO Action RPG.
Ok, I wasn't expecting that, at least, not this soon, his games are the fucking best, and I was expecting what he would do next, and apparently, is this! But it was hard to know, he rarely appear and tells what he is doing. But I did knew he left his first company for "creative reasons" and form his own, and it seems then he started to work with the NervGear company two years back, and also announced the start of development of his so-called "dream project", Survival Art Online. It will be a MMO Action RPG with survival elements set in a fantasy world with both medieval and futuristic elements mixed within, and in his own words, "to create a whole new experience to the players, yet remind them of the times long past when men was one with nature and worked together with the others to overcome all odds and create communities, and with the immersion level that only the NervGear can provide, it will be the ultimate survival cooperative game."
Yeah, I need this game in my hands, and now, I couldn't think that would ever be possible to exist a game that will have everything I always wanted, but there you go! But wait, here the article says the game still has at least one more year of development before launch. Unless, of course, I can become a beta tester of the game, of course! And the article also says "the devs are looking for skilled players for the task, especially the ones with high rankings and experience in other MMORPGs" oh, this just keeps getting better, I am in the Top 30 players of my main game, piece of cake. So, this is it, now I just need a NervGear and a way to include myself in the beta testing crew, and maybe, just maybe, this might also pay well and I could pay a little of my endless debt with big sis for all she made for me, but first, I need someone who can put me there, and I think I know someone... And 'bout that, here finally comes my sister. -Sorry for the waiting Kazuto, the guys really didn't want me to get off that office, but let's go now, what store do you want to go first? -Y'know sister, I was thinking with myself here and I concluded that I really don't need those parts now, my PC is still high tier and I still can live with him some more years just fine. -Ok, what's the catch here, little brother? -So, I was looking into that new VR headset, the NervGear, and also came to conclusion I really need one now. -Why the interest now? When I was telling you that my company started working with them providing the OS for their servers, you weren't that interes- -I also need a favor from you. -Oh, can't say I wasn't expecting that, tell me what you need that only your big sis here can provide! -Since you are working with them, can you ask them a favor to put me in the beta testing of their next game, pretty please? -I will do my best. So, you know where can we buy one of these here? - I am without my phone, remember? -Oh yeah…