The Survival Logs || Sword Art Online Fanfic

Chapter 2 - Realization

31 October 2022.

6.20 pm.

Kayaba Akihiko.

That was the name the large hooded figure looking down on us told us it was called.

And by "us", I meant the 10000 players currently stranded in the open plaza of the Town of Beginnings.

"As some of you may have already known," Kayaba announced, " I am the creator and head programmer of the NerveGear and Sword Art Online."

The vocal translation program that allowed languages to be translated to one's preferred language, but still reproduced the tone of how the voice in question would sound like worked its magic to my ears.

"And as you may have known by now, the logout button in your menus is not working." Kayaba brought down his own menu to demostrate." But....that is not a system error."

"It is the beginning of the true Sword Art Online."

Having heard him mentioning that twice already, I was starting to wonder what Kayaba meant of the word "true". Does SAO have a secret even the beta testers don't know?

Kayaba then continued, " Inside each of your item storages, there is a mirror that each of you should use."

I navigated the menu to the item storage and saw only the item titled, 'Mirror'. The moment I pressed the use button, a little rectangular mirror materialized in front of me. As I grabbed it, the same blue flash of light enveloped me once more.

The first few seconds after that were filled with shock and awkwardness.

I was looking at the real-life face of myself in the same mirror that I materialized from the menu.

I didn't know what to be amazed about, the fact that SAO can reproduce my facial features, or that it can also modify my height to resemble my real-life one.

"The reason you cannot logout," Kayaba's voice sounded monotone. "Is that I disabled the logout function in the game, and subsequently warned the people in the real world not to take off the players' NerveGear at the same time."

"However, the relatives of 213 players did not heed this warning. They perished due to the microwaves that the NerveGear is all too capable of emitting, and in layman terms, fried their brains, thus dying in the real world as well."

Instant gasps could be heard after that. Some of the players shook their heads in disbelief. I myself was a bit skeptical about Kayaba's declaration, but dared not to think of the possibility that my family could take off my NerveGear at anytime.

Because I felt the confidence that resided in the hooded figure, that he'd been very capable in doing so.

Kayaba's voice sounded more ominous by the second." Once your HP meter reaches zero, the NerveGear you are wearing right now will do the exact same thing to you, like what those 213 players had gotten."

"There is only one way to escape this death game. Clear all 100 floors of the floating castle of Aincrad, and complete Sword Art Online."

By the time I reached to the final stage of realization of what exactly happened to me, I already heard the commotion around me, mixed with angry shouts and miserable sobs. Most of the players were male, so the angry shouts were much louder and clearer than the sobs.

It's just too much, I thought. From my point of view, this man just assumed the status of a god in this world.

Fear and anger consumed me at the same time, and even in the virtual world I felt my emotions collide violently.

The commotion continued, but Kayaba didn't care about it anyway.

"I wish you all the best in clearing Sword Art Online. Good luck."

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The next few days after the death game started seeing players all around the Town of Beginnings.

The reason was utterly obvious : no one dared to leave the Town of Beginnings, which is a player safe zone, and take on even the weakest monster out in the fields.

I was a little different. The night the death game started, I stepped out into the fields with my starting weapon in hand, a spear with the name Wooden Spear (although it had metal blades attached to its ends), according to the item description provided by the game system, which I later found out was called the Cardinal System.

My first enemy was most probably the weakest monster of the whole game, the small boar. Being cautious not to take damage from it myself, it turned out pretty good when I finished it off with the very first sword skill in the Spear skill tree, the 2 hit spear skill Twin Thrust.

That gave me a bit more confidence, as I found out that being a spear user, I can attack enemies a bit further than one-handed weapon users.

I did the same nightly routine for the past few days, trying to take down as many small boars as possible.

For a death game, it wasn't all that bad. But I knew I couldn't do what I was doing now forever.

I had heard rumors among the players in the Town of Beginnings that a very small group of players had already explored most of the 1st floor within those few days.

There was very much the certainty that the group of players in question were the beta testers, all whom were Japanese players, and who already knew the geography of the whole 1st floor during their time in the beta phase of SAO.

I knew they would be at a higher level than me, but since the beta testers left the Town of Beginnings, I didn't see any player with a level higher than mine.

With me being at level 8, I decided to set off for the next area the next day, leaving behind the players whose levels still range from 1 to 3.

The beta testers, currently being the fastest in progressing through the 1st floor, were probably at levels in the tens, from a realistic viewpoint.

All I have to do is to catch up to them.

On 12th November 2022, I, along with my Wooden Spear +2 , walked out from the end point of what was called the 'starting fields' by most players, and took my first steps into the next area of the 1st floor of Aincrad.