Sword Art Online 01: Aincrad Part 5

Then I turned my back on the first friend that I had made in this world and ran forward ceaselessly.

After I had run through the winding alleyways for a few minutes, I looked back again. Of course, there was n.o.body there.

I ignored the odd feeling of my chest being constricted and ran.

I ran desperately to the northwest gate of the Starting City and then past the large plains and the deep forest, then a small village located past all this-then past that to an endless, lonely game of survival.

Chapter 4.

One month into the game, two thousand people were dead.

The hope that outside help would come had been crushed, not even a message had gotten through.

I didn't see it myself, but they said that the panic and the madness that took hold of the players when they realized that they really couldn't get back was unbelievable. There were people crying and others wailing, and some even tried to dig up the ground of the city saying that they were going to destroy this world. Of course, all buildings were nonadestructible objects so this attempt failed without any results to show for it.

They say that it took days for the players to accept the situation and think of what to do after that.

The players were split into four categories.

The first consisted of a little over half the players-they were the ones who still wouldn't accept the conditions that Kayaba Akihiko had put forth and still waited for outside help.

I understood what they were thinking painfully well. Their real bodies would be lying on a bed or sitting in a chair fast asleep. That was reality and this situation was "fake". If there was even the smallest discovery, they might be able to get out. Of course, the log out b.u.t.ton was gone but there might be something that the creators of the game might have overlooked....

And outside, the company who ran the game, Argus, would be trying harder than anyone to save the players. If they could just wait, they might be able to open their eyes, have a teary reunion with their family, and then return to school or work and this would all have been just something to talk about....

It wasn't really unreasonable to think like that. I think I was hoping for the same thing deep inside.

Their plan of action was to "wait". They didn't take a single step out of the city and used the money they had been allotted at the beginning of the game (the currency was called "Col" in this world) sparingly, buying only the food they needed to get through the day and finding cheap inns to sleep in, and walked around in groups spending each day without any thought.

Thankfully the "Starting City" was a city that took up twenty percent of the first floor's surface and was large enough to hold a Tokyo district. So the five thousand players would have sufficient room to live in.

But no help was forthcoming, however long they waited. On some days the sky outside was not a crystal blue but covered with grey clouds. Their money couldn't last forever and they realized that they would have to do something.

The second category consisted of about thirty percent, or three thousand players. It was a group where all the players worked together. The leader of it was the admin of the largest online game info site.

The players who made up this category were split into several groups and shared all of their gains, collected information on the game, and set out to explore the labyrinth area where the stairs were. The leaders of this group set up their base of operations in the "Black Iron Castle" and sent orders to their various groups.

This huge group didn't have a name for quite a while, but after all the members received a uniform, somebody gave them the somewhat grim name, "The Army".

The third category consisted of, at an estimate, a thousand players. It was made up of people who had wasted all their Col but didn't want to make money by fighting monsters.

As a sideanote, there were two basic bodily needs in SAO: one was fatigue and the other was hunger.

I understood why fatigue existed: virtual information and real information were no different to the users' brains. If players became sleepy they could go to an inn and rent a room to sleep in depending on the amount of money they had. If one saved up a lot of Col they could buy a house, but the sum needed wasn't small.

Hunger was a need that many players thought of as strange. Although they didn't really want to imagine what was happening to their bodies in the real world, it was most likely that we were being forceafed nutrients somehow. That meant that the emptiness we felt here had nothing to do with our real bodies.

But if we bought some virtual bread or meat in the game and ate it, the emptiness disappeared and we felt full. There was no way to find out how this strange mechanism worked short of asking a professional in the field of neurology.

So the opposite was true too: the hunger didn't disappear unless we ate something. We most probably wouldn't die if we starved, but the fact that it's a need that's hard to ignore doesn't change. So the players visited the restaurants that the NPCs ran daily and ate some food, at least virtually.

Also, there was no need to excrete waste in the game. As to what was happening in the real world, I didn't even want to think about it.

Well, back to the main point....

The players who had squandered all their money in the beginning, who couldn't sleep or eat, usually joined the huge organization that I mentioned a while ago, "The Army". This was because they received at least something to eat if they followed the orders from the top.

But there are always those who can't ever cooperate with others however hard they try. The ones who never wanted to join, or got kicked out for causing trouble, used the slums of the "Starting City" as their base and started thieving.

Inside the city, or the places mostly referred to as "Safe Areas", there was protection implemented by the system and players couldn't hurt each other. But it wasn't like that outside. The stragglers made teams with other stragglers and ambushed other players-which was in many ways much more profitable than hunting monsters-out on the fields or the labyrinth areas.

Even then, they never "murdered" anybody -well, at least during the first year.

This group got slowly larger until they reached the aforementioned number of a thousand.

The final, fourth category was, simply said, the rest.

There were fifty groups created by people who wanted to clear the game but didn't join the huge organization. They numbered around five hundred. We called these groups "Guilds" and they had a mobility that "The Army" lacked. Using that mobility, they steadily grew stronger.

Then there were the very few who chose the merchant and craftsman cla.s.ses. They only numbered about two to three hundred, but they created guilds of their own and started training the skills that they would need to earn the Col they need to get by.

The rest, around one hundred players, were called "Solo Players"-this was the group I belonged to.

They were the selfish group who had decided that acting alone would be better for strengthening themselves and simply surviving. If they could use the information they had, they could level up quickly. After they had gained the power to fight against monsters and bandits by themselves, there was truthfully no merit in fighting with other players.

An additional feature of SAO was that there was no "Magic"; in other words, there were no "long range attacks with a 100% accuracy rate", so one could fight large groups of monsters alone. If one had the required skills, playing solo was much more effective in getting experience points than party playing.

Of course, there were risks involved. To give an example, if a person was "Paralyzed" and if he had party members with him, they'd just cure him and that'd be that. But if the person was playing solo, it could lead straight to death. Actually, in the very beginning, solo players had the highest fatality rate amongst all the players.

But if you had the experience and knowledge to win through all this danger, there was a much better compensation for all this risk, and the beta testers (including myself) had both of these things.

With this precious information the solo players leveled up at a fierce pace and a huge gap soon opened between them and the rest of the players. After the game had calmed down a bit, most solo players got out of the first floor and used the cities in the upper levels as their bases.

Inside the Black Iron Castle, where the "Room of the Resurrected" had been during the beta testing, there now stood a huge metal monument that hadn't existed during beta testing. The names of all ten thousand players were carved on its surface. In addition, a line appeared through the name of a person who died and it gave the time and cause of death next to it.

The first person to get the honor of having his name crossed out appeared three hours into the game.

The cause of death was not losing to a monster. It was suicide.

He believed in the theory that "according to the structure of the Nerve Gear, if a person is cut off from the system they'll automatically regain consciousness." He climbed over the iron fence at the north end of the city, at the edge of Aincrad, and flung himself off.

Beneath the floating castle that was Aincard, no ground could be seen however much you strained your eyes. There was only an endless sky with several layers of white clouds. As countless players watched him, the boy got steadily smaller, leaving a long scream and finally disappearing into the clouds.

The short line was crossed mercilessly over the boy's name two minutes later. The cause of death was "Falling in midair". I didn't even want to imagine what he went through during those two minutes. There was no way of knowing if he had returned to the real world or, as Kayaba had said, he had his brain fried. But most people believed that if there was such a simple way of escaping the game, the people outside would have already pulled the plugs and saved us.

But there were still some who gave in to this easy way of dealing with things. Most people, including me, found it hard to take the "Death" in SAO as reality.

That had still not changed. The phenomenon of the HP bar reaching zero and the polygons that made up our bodies being destroyed was too much like the "Game Over" that we were all too familiar with. It was probable that the only way to understand the real meaning of death in SAO would be to experience it yourself. This shaky truth would have been the reason that the decrease in players slowed.

On the other hand, a lot of the players who were part of "The Army", especially the ones who had first belonged to the first group, started losing their lives while trying to clear the game and fighting monsters.

Fights in SAO needed a bit of getting used to. It was less like trying to force yourself to move but "entrusting" your movements to the system.

For example, even for a simple uppercut with a oneahanded sword, if the player learned the "Oneahanded Sword Skill" and then equipped "Uppercut" from the list, they would only need to a.s.sume the starting motion; then the system would almost automatically move their body for them. But if someone without the skill tried to copy the movements, it would be too slow and weak to use in actual combat. It was like inputting commands in a fighting game.

The people who didn't adjust to this just swung their swords around and even lost to boars and wolves they would have been able to beat if they used the single strike skills they had by default. Even then, if they just gave up and ran away after losing some of their HP, they wouldn't have died but...

Unlike the attacks of 2D monsters that we see through a monitor screen, the battles in SAO were so real that you'd feel afraid. It was as if a real monster was baring its teeth at you and giving chase with the intention of killing you.

Even during the beta testing there were some people who panicked in the middle of a fight, but now death awaited you if you lost. The panicastricken players forgot about using their skills and even running away, their HP disappeared and they were expelled from this world forever.

Suicide, losing to monsters. The number of crossedaout names multiplied at a terrifying pace.

When these reached two thousand, one month into the game, a cloud of despair hung over the surviving players. If the number of deaths kept increasing at this pace, all ten thousand would be dead in less than half a year. Clearing the hundredth floor seemed like a mere dream.

But... humans adapt.

A little over a month later, the first labyrinth was cleared and the number of deaths started to slow quickly. People started spreading information in order to survive and most people started to perceive that monsters weren't all that scary if you gained enough experience points and leveled up properly.

It might be possible to clear the game and return to the real world. The number of players that started thinking like that increased slowly but steadily.

The top floor was still far away, but the players started moving with this vague hope... and the world started turning again.

Now, two years later and with twenty six floors left, the number of survivors is around six thousand.

This is the current situation in Aincrad.

Chapter 5.

After ending my fight with a formidable enemy that prowled the "Labyrinth Area" of floor seventy-four, I recounted my way back, as well as the past, and let out a sigh of relief as I saw the light of the entrance.

I emptied my head, walked quickly out of the pa.s.sageway, and took a deep breath of the fresh, clean air.

In front of me, a narrow lane went into the thick, overgrown forest. Behind me, the labyrinth area I had just come out of soared high into the sky-until the bottom of the next floor to be more precise.

Because the game was based on getting to the top of the castle, the dungeons in this world weren't underground labyrinths but existed as towers. However, the basic setting hadn't changed: monsters stronger than the ones you met out on the fields roamed within, while the boss monster waited for you in its deepest reaches.

Right now, eighty percent of the seventy-fourth floor labyrinth area had been explored, or in other words, had been "mapped". In a couple of days, the boss room would most probably be discovered, and a large-scale team would be made. Then, even I, a solo player, would take part.

I smiled at myself for feeling both expectant and frustrated at the same time and started walking down the lane.

For the moment, my hometown is the biggest city in Aincrad, "Algade", which was located on the fiftieth floor. Well, in mere size, the Starting City was larger, but that place had now totally become "The Army"'s base of operations, so it was a little uncomfortable to walk around in.

As soon as I made it out of the now darkening plains, a forest full of old trees stretched out before me. If I walked for thirty minutes through there, I would arrive at the "Housing Area" of the seventy-fourth floor and just use the "Teleport Gate" there to warp myself over to Algade.

I could always use one of the instant teleportation items in my inventory to return to Algade at any time. But since it was a little expensive, I was reluctant to use it unless I was in a dangerous situation. There was still some time before the sun disappeared completely, so I resisted the temptation of returning to my house as fast as I could and entered the forest.

As a rule, the edges of each floor in Aincrad were usually open to the sky, apart from the support pillars. The trees burned red from the light that entered through that gap. The mist that flowed in between the rays of light shone brilliantly as it reflected the light of the sunset. The cries of the birds, which were common during the day, were hard to hear now, while the sound of branches swaying in the wind seemed magnified.

I knew quite well that I could fight the monsters that appeared in this area even while half-asleep, but the fear that comes with the dark was hard to suppress. A feeling, similar to the one I had as a kid when I was trying to get back home after losing my way, filled me.

But I didn't dislike this feeling. I had forgotten about this primitive fear sometime when I was living back on the other side. The feeling of loneliness that you get when you're traveling the wilderness with n.o.body in sight however much you look-you could call this the essence of an RPG.

While I was absorbed in these nostalgic memories, a cry that I'd never heard before suddenly entered my ears.

It sounded only for a moment, high and clear like a reed pipe. I stopped my feet and carefully searched for the direction the sound came from. If you heard or saw something that you'd never experienced before in this world, it meant that you were either very lucky or the opposite.

As a solo player, I'd trained my "Scan for Enemy" skill. This skill prevented ambushes and when you became more proficient at it, it gave the player the additional ability of being able to detect monsters that were in "hiding." Through it, I could see a monster hiding between the branches ten meters away.

It wasn't very big. It had green fur to camouflage itself in the leaves and had ears longer than its body. As I concentrated on it, it automatically became my target and a yellow cursor appeared along with its name.

I held my breath as soon as I read the name: "Ragout Rabbit". It was rare enough to earn the adjective "super."

It was the first time I'd actually seen the real thing. The plump rabbit that lived in the branches wasn't all that strong, nor did it give you that many experience points, but- I silently drew a thin throwing pick from my belt. My "Knife Throwing Skill" wasn't all that high. I had simply chosen it as a branch on my skill tree at some point. But I'd heard that the Ragout Rabbit was the fastest monster among the ones that were currently known, so I didn't really have much confidence in catching it with my sword.

I had one chance to attack before the opponent noticed me. I raised my pick, praying mentally, and a.s.sumed the "Single Shot" position.

Well, however low my skill was, my hand was backed up by my high dexterity and threw the pick in a blur of motion. The pick glinted once and then was sucked into the trees. As soon as I attacked, the cursor, which showed the direction the Ragout Rabbit was in, turned red and the HP bar appeared beneath it.

A high pitched scream sounded from the direction which I'd thrown my pick. The HP bar faltered a little and then went down to 0. The familiar sound of polygons shattering resounded.

I made a fist with my left hand. I raised my right hand and opened the main menu. I opened the inventory quickly, with even my hand movements seeming too slow to me, and it was there at the very top of the newly acquired item list: "Ragout Rabbit's meat". It was a rare item that could be sold to other players at a minimum price of one hundred thousand Col. That amount of money was enough to tailor a full set of the best armor and still have change leftover.

The reason that this was so expensive was pretty simple, as it was set as the most delicious food ingredient among the numerous ingredients available in the game.

Eating was just about the only pleasure in SAO, but the only thing you could eat usually was the soup and bread that tasted as if they were from the European countryside-well not that I knew; but the fact was that it was plain. A few players who had trained their cooking skill had established this after a lot of thought in order to let the other players eat a wider range of foods. But even this wasn't that easy to get across, so as a rule the players were all deprived of taste.

Of course, my current situation wasn't much different, and I didn't dislike the soup and full wheat bread the NPC restaurant that I frequented sold. But from time to time the need to eat at least a mouthful of juicy meat overtook me.

For a while I stared at the name of the item and kept wondering what to do. The chances of me getting this sort of ingredient again were very low. To be honest, I really wanted to eat it. But the higher the ingredients' rank, the more skill was needed to actually cook it. So I had to find a master level cook to cook this for me.

But I didn't know any. Well, I did know a few, but hunting them down for something like this was annoying. Even more than that, it was about time I got a new set of equipment. Consequently, I decided to sell it.