Sword Art Online - CRYSTAL Part One

Author's Note: This piece of work will not be updated. As of right now, I am writing my own works and would like to focus on that. Also, this is really old. I am only putting this on here so I can see the path of improvement.

Thank you.
- FS

Chapter 0
The Prison we call Home

I run at full steam, exercising each agility point I have gained over the last year. I charge full force at the looming shadow that consumes my vision. My long, silver blade glows white as my attack charges; bash, crack. The sound of the floor around me being smashed by the large claw of the monster. The thing must be over forty feet tall—around the size of four story tall building, and the cave we are in dwarfed the monstrosity. I can’t imagine the amount of data and programming that had gone into this single room, not including the huge world outside.
This world is nothing but that, data and code. However, it is very much real to us since Day One.

“Don’t let your guard down!” I hear come from one of the guild leaders that were distracting the colossal mass. “We need more people here getting this asshole’s attention!” My sword is now fully charged, now to let loose on this freak.

“Aghhh!” I turn around to the sound, the distraction party failed. The large monster crushed each player under its large foot. Shit! I thought to myself. We are so fucked if we don’t have a distraction.

The large creature turns towards me and the rest of the assault squad. “Fuck, retreat!” demanded out squad leader. The rest of the squad turn to his command, however I continue advancing at the monster. If we don’t end this soon, more people will die. I charge full fledge at the monster; it swipes.
I leap over the attack, its claw scratching my leg. I barely feel it as in this world, getting hit doesn’t hurt that much. The only way you can tell you are hit is on your health bar and the force of the attack. I grab onto the creature’s fur and held on for dear life as the monster retreats its leg.

Holy shit this was a bad idea! It notices me on its leg and starts swinging to make me lose my grip. “Get the fucking thing!” I shout at the dazed warriors down below. I am pulling off the best distraction so they better fucking act on it.

One of the leaders see the window of opportunity and shout, “Give it all this time lads! Charge!” The large group of people start to charge, deafening the monster’s cries with the sound of screaming and running. Swipe, slash, bash. They were letting full hell upon this monstrosity, its health bar shrinking by the second.

Just hold on for… a few more seconds… The creature stops shaking. Has it given up? Did we win?

“Rawrrr!” The monster cries out loud, sending shock waves among the parties of people. It staggers all of them, making them all fall over. They were vulnerable to the creatures outrage.

If I don’t do anything, they will all be wiped out in a second! I continue to hold onto the creature’s thick fur as it shook; it raises its arm in the air above its neck. Yes an opportunity! I let go of the fur and charge my sword again, pointing its blade down wards towards the monster’s neck. “Die you son of a bitch!” I scream as I nose dive towards the monster, my blade being the front of the attack.
My descent increases in velocity as I continue to hold the long blade in-front of me.

Twenty meters, ten meters, five meters, bullseye! I hit the monster square in the neck just as it was about to swing for the troops below. My hearing numbs, as if I was temporarily deafened. I hear the monster scream in agony and the blurry image of its health slowly deplete into the red zone, then become empty.

The creature disappears in a flurry of blue polygons. I was suspend in midair for a few seconds before I fall down onto the ground below; about a thirteen meter descent. Bas, I hit the ground. I open my eyes to see my health bar in the red zone, about ten percent full. Jesus that was too close. I look at the item I gained from killing the boss, “Light Ripper”; it is a weapon.
My other sword lands beside me, smashing into a explosion of blue. There goes my fucking blade. I continue to lay on the ground trying to catch my breath. I roll my head around to see the large group of people regaining their balance and looking around at the now cold, dark room.

I just saved some lives, I thought. A feeling of heroism floods through me, a feeling which allows my mouth to produce a smile, something I rarely do. I am so tired from that fight I could just go to sleep right here on this cold rock bedded floor. But before I could of done that, I hear footsteps approach me. I quickly roll my head around to see a tall, grim looking man with gray hair walking towards me. Oh fuck, it could of been anyone but him. It was Heathcliff, leader of Knights of the Blood.
He is probably in his twenties-early thirties but his in-game character made him look centuries older. I stand up and face the man, oddly I was taller than him. That’s the perk for being from England and not Japan, the English blood made me grow extremely tall for my age. I look the man directly in the eyes.

“My my, I have seen people do stupid things,” the man says in a monotone voice. “But that was probably one of the stupidest things I have seen people do in this world.” He places his sword in-front of him with his hands laying on the pommel of the sword. “However,” he continues. “That stupid thing just saved the lives of everyone here and I give you my dearest thanks.” I see the people that stand behind him, all smiling at each other and at me. “Say, are you part of a guild?”

I turn to him and see the look on his face, still stern and defined with seriousness. “No, sir.” I reply. He lets a small, welcoming smile form around the edge of his mouth. “If that is the case, why don’t you come by our guild base situated at the fifty-fifth floor city of Granzam. We sure need more people like-” “Sorry,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to be in a guild. I have trust issues surrounding other players sir.” I bow my head, “I am greatly honored by your request however.”
His face quickly turns back into the same serious look, but says, “That is OK.” He turns to leave. “If however you change your mind, we will be waiting. You will soon realize you need a guild to back you up.” He walks back to the large group of men that were tired out.

I fall back on my ass and trail my finger down in-front of me to open up the transparent screen that is my menu. It was purple tinted and displays my items along with my equipped gear. The equipped gear was displayed on a mannequin. Above that is my health and EXP. I open my inventory and look for the sword I got for killing the boss. I get to it after scrolling for a while through my items. “Light Ripper” it read. I equip the sword onto my right hand and in a flash of blue, there it was, gripped in between my fingers.
Its blade is long and black, with a purple tinge surrounding edge of it. The hilt is also black and purple with a large, black gem situated in the middle of the rain guard. I look at the item’s buffs and effective uses. It is effective against light based mobs, labyrinth creatures, floor based monsters, players… I stop to look at the word. Players? This sword is effective against players? That isn’t normal.

Usually, a sword’s effective uses are specified for mobs as players can be a wide range of a anti-buffs so a single sword can’t be effective against all of them. But this sword specifies that it is effective against all players which doesn’t make sense. Maybe the writers of the game items got lazy and accidentally left this in, I thought logically.
I sheath it into the scabbard that once housed the predecessor sword. Weirdly, it fits comfortably into the scabbard as if the scabbard was made for this sword, even though it was made for the previous one. I shake it off thinking it was a glitch and got up and did some stretches.
I look at the now open door that has a stairway leading up to the next floor. The stairway upwards was going to be long and tedious. I take a drink of the sweet, tea flavored HP bottle before starting to clamber up the stone stairs to the next floor.

* * *

I walk out of the opening of the stairway onto the green, grassy field. I take a quick smell of the fresh, clear air and observe the area surrounding me. It was morning—we entered the dungeon at sunset. We have been in the dungeon for an entire night, working our way through heaps and heaps of mobs. After doing that, we probably spent about an hour or more fighting the boss. Our group consists of around fifty people with level gaps of around level twenty to level ninety.
I myself am a level eighty five player which is pretty high. However, even with the high level players by our sides, we lost six men in transversing the labyrinth and three men in the boss room. This is a pinch compared to the causalities we faced back in the earlier floors when our groups were not as organized and battle ready. But slowly, we learned from our mistakes and our causalities have lowered dramatically.

I look at the surrounding emerald hills and foliage. The sky naturally is blue and scattered among it is fluffy clouds. In the distance I can see a city that is waiting for us to explore and discover. Even further in the horizon, a tall white pillar connects the sky with the ground. That is where this floor’s boss resides. I had enough thinking about bosses for one day, so I ignore the danger that awaits us and run towards the city in hopes of getting a bed to sleep in tonight. My agility is almost maxed out so my top running speed is faster than most monsters and players.
I dodge around the aggravated mobs and avoid the trees as I make my way to the gate. Everything around me is a blur so I didn’t get the chance to survey the surrounding area for items. Right now all that mattered is getting some rest and a bite to eat. I finally reach the tall, silver gate that leads into the city.

I am the first one here. I know this because the NPCs haven’t spawned yet and the quest markers haven’t appeared on my map yet. I put my right foot through the gate onto the gravel path that laid in-front of me. Suddenly, in a flash, the town jumps to life. The quest markers pop up almost simultaneously and the NPCs started to call out their preprogrammed dialog.

“Hey you, come here for some great armor!”

“How about theses wears my friend!”

They weren’t even looking at me directly, just blindly staring at the road in-front of them. This sort of thing remind me that we aren’t in a real world that had a living breathing environment. We are in a game made by a company called Argus and now our real bodies are lying on a hospital bed, connected to some life support machine. However, to talk about our outside lives in this game is sort of taboo. I don’t know why, but I think it is some sort of jinx that might happen if you start talking about your real life.
I don’t really remember what my life was like outside this world, like it never existed. It is strange, but even since the first day of being trapped in this game, I can barely recall any of the memories of the outside world. I can remember trivial things like I was a student and that I had a family, but I can’t remember what my family was like or how good I was at my subjects.
This sort of amnesia is really hard to deal with as it makes me feel not real. But I must be, everyone else here who could speak on their own accord is a human being. Anything else is something that was created in this game.

I run towards a tavern situated in the center of the main road. It was in a V shape, separating the main road into two smaller roads. The building has cream colored bricks and small square windows. This place looks kind of cheap, but if I can sleep I will happy enough. I walk into the reception room and go up to the old woman who was behind the desk. She notices me as I step in her activation range which was right on the side of the desk. She has gray hair tied back in a pony tail and wears thick circular glasses.

She looks up to me and asks, “Hey young man. What can I do for you?” She has an old weak, shaking voice like she was about to collapse but I needn’t worry. A transparent screen appears in-front of me with three options—
“Buy a room - 500 col”, “Buy Sustenance” and “Leave”. I tap the first option and it extracts 500 col from my bank account.

“OK son. Here is your key. Enjoy your stay my dear.” The old lady hands me a key that seems to have materialize out of thin air. I take the key and start to traverse up the stairs to my room. “Ugh, more fucking stairs”, I curse under my breath as I go up the second set of stairs. I make to my room and open the old, wooden door to my room. I look inside the room and as I expected it was exceptionally full of dust, cobwebs and other disgusting things. It is weird because about a few moments ago, this room didn’t exist.
But when you enter the key into the door, the room loads up instantaneously so it would appear it was always there, but once I caught a glimpse of my hotel room down in Floor Thirty-Six load up because I rapidly opened the door before the game could make the room.

There is only one bed in the room with a desk and a bookcase. The bed didn’t look one bit comfortable, but it doesn’t matter as back injures aren’t a thing in this world. I jump onto the run-downed bed with a huge thump and creak. I sit up and look outside the dusty window. Now the city is full of players going around the separate stalls and houses for quests.

Wow some players still have the energy to continue fighting? I ask in my head. I slam my head onto the stained pillow and close my eyes wishing for my brain to drift away into a dream.

Tomorrow is going to be a new day. A new day to fight. A new day to survive. A new day to live in this prison we now call home.




Chapter 1
Innocent Days

I get up from my bed and look at the alarm on the desk beside my bed. “12:15 November 6, 2022” This sort of time for me waking up is normal especially during the weekends. On school days I try to get up on time for school, but usually I get up ten or fifteen minutes late which makes my homeroom teacher extremely pissed. I am doing good in school—or reasonably alright. My marks are over the class average most of the time but my teachers keep on pushing me saying “Oh you aren’t trying hard enough” or “You need to focus Naoki!” before beating me over the head with their textbook. I really need to focus on my studies, but I love gaming and nothing would ever make me think twice about getting new consoles and games.

Speaking of, today is the day that would spark a generation of gaming technology. My friends and I got the new Full-Dive virtual reality kit called the “NerveGear”. It was initially released on May of this year, but only a select amount of people were allowed to test it—of which I wasn’t one of the lucky few sadly. However, it started selling to the public a few days ago in preparation for the first and new Virtual Reality Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game—VRMMORPG— “Sword Art Online”.
The game was beta released along with the NerveGear and from what I hear, this game is going to be a revolution in online gaming. And today is the day the public get to relish in its glory. I assume it is going to be a lot like the other MMORPGs I have played in my time but with the full experience happening around me, not just in-front of me on a screen. I am bursting with excitement.

I jump of my bunk, slipped on a white shirt and some jeans and start to kick the large lump underneath a large duvet. A groaning sound could be heard from underneath the layers of bed covers.

“Dude get the hell up!” I shout at the groaning lump. “Don’t make me drag you out!”

“Agh OK OK!” The lump stands up and the duvet falls off it, revealing a young man in his teenage years. His hair is blond and medium length, his eyes shine a bright blue. He has post-puberty strands of hair grow from his chin which he never shaves off. He turns to face me.

“What is the fucking rush?” he asked me, rubbing his eyes. “It ain’t Christmas yet—”

“The Sword Art Online servers are up soon you lazy bastard!” I say, slapping him awake. “I also need your help waking up Kan.”

“What’s the magic word?”

“Please Youhara, assist me with this task only the greatest of warriors can accomplish.” I bow my head in respect.

“Jee man, dramatic much?” He sighs and gets up from his bed, his fluorescent pink underwear blinding my eyes. I cover my eyes to protect my vision. “Oh shut up!” He says hitting me in the back of the head. He starts to stretch and wake himself up then promptly puts on his normal: a denim jacket, jeans, and finishes with a trilby. It suits him, but all we are doing is getting Kanji up.

“OK how are we going to do this.” he says, looking down at the mess that was adjacent to our beds. We both start to really access the situation, any ideas could make or break the situation we are in right now. You see, Kanji isn’t the best in waking up after sleeping. When he does, he starts to try and charge at us trying to beat us with his fists of “justice”. He always says that he is the one who decides when it is time for him to get up and that anyone who wakes him without his accord, he will rip them a new one. This is why we are so worried about touching him at all.

“I got an idea.” I say, walking out of the room. A few minutes later I return with a large bottle of water, about one liter.

“OK, wait a minute Naoki,” he says, staring at me sternly. “If you do this, it might set him off.” I reveal my plan for that from behind me, a long wooden sword from bottom to the top with mahogany—it is a Bokken. Well to be exact it is my Bokken. I know how to probably swing it.

“Ohhh,” he says, his eyes wide with glee. “That’s going to hurt if he resists.” We both stare at Kanji’s sleeping face with a huge smile from ear to ear. I throw the water on him and we both step back.

The sight that was on display in-front of us. His face is a blur as he jumps up from his bed, shouting and grabbing Youhara’s sheets and wiping himself in a flash. He looks directly at me, knowing that only I would do something so criminal.

“Why you-” he sees the long, wooden sword unsheathe from my back. I point it at him with an evil grin on my face. His face of anger slowly turns to one of absolute fear and anguish.

“Sit the fuck down and get your clothing on,” I demand in a deep, threatening voice. “We are getting breakfast and then we are going to play with the NerveGear, got it?” I sound like a delinquent, threatening a captured hostage with blunt force. He slowly sits down and starts to put his clothes on. I sheathe my sword thinking I won. I turn to face Youhara.

“Oh shit, dude watch o-” Smash, just like that, his words became a blur then the world follows. Darkness.

* * *

I open my eyes to a cream colored carpet that was in-front of me. My eyes focus on every fiber of the carpet with my glasses a few inches lying in-front of me. Ow, he didn’t have to hit me that hard. I grab my glasses and bring myself to stand. I look around for my Bokken, gone just as I thought. I turn my eyes to see my alarm clock on the top of my shelf, “12:45pm”.
Fuck I was out for a long time. I go out of the room to see two boys quickly slurping on some soup and wiping their mouths with the back of their wrist, like they were competing for who could eat and vomit the fastest. I see my Bokken with its strap wrapped around the back of Kanji’s chair. My eyes focus on the wooden hilt and in an instant my blood starts to pump like the back beat of a song, rhythmic and full of life. For a moment, the world slows down as I leap towards the weapon.
Kanji notices the attack and turns to grab it but I get a grasp on the blade of it. I rip it from his grasp and roll on my knees, leaving carpet marks on it. I jump up and point it at him.

“I should smack you good with this, but before I do so what the hell did you hit me with?” I say, rubbing the huge lump on the back of my head. “Also Youhara, why didn’t you help me? I thought we were tight man.” I look at the guilty faced Youhara as he finishes his soup.

“Well, you see.” Youhara replies. “He gave me five hundred yen to join his side in this so…” I stare at him in utter disappointment and disbelief. “Sorry dude.”

“And what about you, Kan?” I look him directly in the soul, as a sign of dominance. “What the hell did you hit me with?”

The rebellious teenager flips his hair before looking at me with his eyes of death. “I smacked you with my English notebook. All one thousand pages of it.”

“Yep, all one thousand unused pages.” Youhara adds with a devilish grin.

“Hey, I do my homework!”

“No, you don’t. Ever.”

He glares at Youhara, his green eyes screaming I’ll kill you. “Where did that five hundred yen go? I don’t think you deserve it anymore.” He looks around slyly, looking for a glimpse of the five thousand yen papers—but to no avail.

“I put them in my secret place where you’ll never find them.” From a stand point perception, Kanji looks like the evil one who would do a friend over for five thousand yen. However, such cruelty would only be done by Youhara the Devil’s advocate. He is the true evil. I knew from the beginning however that he wouldn’t join Kanji’s side as me and him have something special. That might sound like it come of the deep end, but me and Youhara have been like this since kids. Kanji has only been our friend for a year and a half so we still haven’t shown him all the nooks and crannies of our apartment.
We have a guardian mind you, a nice old woman by the name of Masami. She lives in the apartment next to us, but comes over everyday to check on us. She gives us money for food and cares for us. That reminds me.

“Guys stop bickering,” I say. “We need to leave a note out for Ms. Masami. If she knocks on the door and we don’t answer, she will start to worry.” They both agree.

I grab a sticky note and scribble a note onto it. I run out of the door and stick in onto the front of the door. I close the door and lock it, closing the blinds. Kanji and Youhara start to do the same. Eventually, the room was completely pitch black and not a single light source could be seen. We all go into the bedroom and close the door behind us and from underneath Kanji’s bed, Youhara reveals three boxes. Each box imprinted with the words “NerveGear” and “Argus Productions.” We take the headsets out of the boxes and throw the boxes in some random direction, one hitting Kanji in the face.

“Ow, that fucking hurt.”

“Shhh…”

We place the cable into ports on our computer. We then all crawl into our beds and lay on top of the covers. I remove my glasses and place them on the shelf. I stick the headgear onto my head and turned it on. It displays the time “12:59” on the top corner. In a minutes time, we will be invested into a world where monsters are stories tall and the weapons are awesome looking. I know what else Kanji can’t wait for, the ladies. I think this game allows you to change your gender, so I laugh at the idea of Kanji thinking he is dating a girl but when they meet in real life, it is a thirty five year old man. I chuckle slightly at the idea.

“OK is everyone ready?” I hear Youhara ask.

“Yep!”

“Hell yeah!”

“3… 2… 1…”

Little did we know, this would be the last time we could live as innocent young boys. In the world we are about to enter, we have some growing up to do.

“LINK START!”




Chapter 2
Hell’s Welcoming Call

I open my eyes to see a large plaza that was slowly but surely being filled by people, appearing in it in a flash of blue polygons. The second the players spawn they have the same dumbfounded look I had when I logged in, looking at the detail and realism this game has to offer. A few of the players just spawned in and ran off into the city, which I assume means they are beta tester.
They didn’t need to observe the world around them, as over the last while the world became a familiar realm for them to wander. When my friends and I group up, we should go to one of these guys to help us. Maybe they won’t be stuck up pricks like other beta testers in games. I feel the tapping of the back of my shoulder and I turn to see a very tall man with red hair and green eyes. He wears red starter gear and is unimaginably buff. His name reads “Red Raven” I know who this is, it is…

“Kan, why the hell did you change your look so much?” He looks at me as if I went mental.

“What do you mean change?” Kanji says through his teeth, nudging me slighting. I turn my head around to see two good-looking girls standing near us, chatting about how “this” and “that” this game is. I turn back to him, laughing.

“Dude, they are probably guys in real life.” I say. “Even if that was the case, you still would have no chance with them.”

He spits at me, the saliva just missing my foot. He tries so hard sometimes to be cool. Just as I was about to respond about that incident, I see blond hair jump up and down through the crowd of picture perfect mannequins with bits of “Hey” and “I’m over here” reaching us over the crowd’s mumblings. It was directed at us, sounds like Youhara only that the voice is a bit off.

“You see?” I say to Kanji. “At least Youhara didn’t change his look that muc—”

When I fully see Youhara’s character present in-front of me, I eat my words like they were actual ink and paper. He had the same hair style, medium length blond. But, he has boobs. Like these things were absolutely massive, if they were any bigger they would consume his torso. He has a slender figure and long legs with feminine written all over them. His face has big eyes, a cute, small nose center stage and lips with some gloss on them. The name that appears over his head is “Youharai”. He is a girl. If I had no knowledge of his initial gender, I would of gawked at the piece of perfected anatomy standing before me. In-fact some guys turned their heads to stare at him, their eyes dilated with surprise.

What did I do to have friends like this.

“So boys,” Youhara says, his voice as feminine and materialistic as his character. “What do you think?” You see, you can edit your character’s voice as well. This allows people to change genders easily, which I am perfectly fine with. But when you do it to attract the attention of ignorant and sexually excited heterosexuals, that is when things get weird and sad. We both stare at him in pure awe. He shakes his hips, the breasts flying left and right when doing so.

Oh god stop, please, just stop!

“We need to talk.” I demand, grabbing his wrist and running out of the populated area. Kanji follows us like a duckling with their mother. I hear the echo of groans by the male players, thinking I got the worm first. Mother-fuckers I am saving you, I scream in my head. We run down a street and into an alleyway where no one would see us. I proceed to punch Youhara in the arm.

“Hey you can’t hit a girl!” he says, holding onto his right arm. He whimpers in his best “girl like” impression. I punch him again, this time harder.

“Why the fuck are you a girl?!” I ask him, my voice echoing through the alleyways. “You’ll bring unwanted attention to yourself!”

He winks at me, sticking his finger near his lips and staring at me. “I thought if we are going to be a three man party, I could be the female in it.”

“And why couldn’t it be three guys?”

“Because why not?”

I sigh, I wasn’t getting anywhere with this. I trail my finger down to open up my inventory to reveal three items: an iron short-sword, starter gear and a health potion. I hit the sword’s button and hit the equip option that appeared beside it. Instantaneously in a flash of blue, the sword appears in my right hand. It looks really blunt, run down and looks like it couldn’t cut through paper if it tried.

“Right, we need to start leveling up like shit,” I say. “Get your swords out boys, we are going mob hunting!” Youhara nods with agreement, however I notice that Kanji hasn’t spoke in a while. I turn to speak to Kanji.

“Kan, what do you thin—” I see the gawking look on his face, his eyes fixed on the very revealing outfit Youhara was wearing. Youhara also notices the peeping tom, but instead of drop kicking him in the face, he starts to strike poses to entice the pervert. Oh fucks sake! I slap Kanji in the face and trip Youhara to snap them both into reality.

“Can you change your character in this game?” I ask Kanji, who knows more about this game than me.

“Nope, thankfully.” He says, looking up and down Youhara’s character.

I give up. I really give up!

* * *



Slash, pa-thud, smash. The boar breaks into a flurry of blue polygons as my sword cuts it in half. I look up at the surrounding fields of green and at town wall that was about half a kilometer away. I look at my health, still in green—good. My eyes wander over to where Youhara and Kanji were dueling it out with two boars. Rahhh, smash, Kanji flies backwards as the boar hits him. His health was now in the red.

Idiot, you are suppose to be the one who knows everything about this game! I thought. Youhara seems to be enjoying himself, well a bit too much. He swings at the boar, trying to flaunt his body as much as he can. Wow, could you objectify yourself more? I sigh before running over to see how Kanji is doing.

“Hey do ya need help there?” I look down at him, smirking. We picked up how to fight really easily, just charge and slice. Keep doing that and eventually the enemy dies. Simple enough, only an idiot wouldn’t be able to do it.

“No I don’t,” he says, getting up from his ass. He drinks the health potion and it fills up to three quarters full. “I can handle them myself!” He charges at another boar and takes a swing at it. Bash, ba-thump. I see him fly right over my head and land twenty feet away from the boar.

Thought so.

Youhara turns to me and asks, “Hey, wanna go get a bite to eat at the inn?”

“In what way do you mean ‘get a bite to eat’?” In the background, the loud angry screaming of Kanji could be heard, cursing his ass off. I was referring to the fact that he is seemingly into guys now for some reason, my fear being it was some sort of date. He laughs.

“Not like that you idiot,” he slaps me on the back. “I mean just get something to eat at the inn! Nothing more dude!” I look at the sun, it was three quarters way in the sky.

“We will leave this game when the sun sets. Alright Y-” I look back to where Youhara was, but he has disappeared. I look frantically around to see him running off towards the town of beginnings.

I shout “Hey wait the hell up!”, but to no avail. When realizing this, I sigh and follow him. Kanji follows us from behind us.

* * *

“What to you fine lads and lassies want for a drink?” asks the brunette bartender. She looks at all us with her eyes of stunning beauty.

“Two ciders and a glass of juice for the wee kid here,” Kanji says, patting me on the head jokingly. I do look considerably younger than the rest of them in-game, but still... He sees the embarrassed look on my face, laughs a bit before finishing with, “Scratch the juice, three ciders please.” The brunette gives Kanji a wink before going off behind the bar, I bet he enjoyed that. We are in an inn near the central part of the Town of Beginnings. It is sorta packed, with the backseats full of a huge group of friends and the individual tables has one to two people on each. The bar only has us three sitting there, waiting for our three ciders. Of course, some of the guys in the back and on the tables were eying up Youhara’s avatar. Boy if I went over there and told them of his real identity, it would be the biggest crotch punch ever. The idea made me laugh-out-loud, something that seemingly disturbed Kanji’s pervert thoughts.

“What scheme are you thinking of?” he asks curiously.

“Oh nothing.” I say, grinning. You are on the same boat as those pervs. The brunette bartender returns with three pint glasses of cider, the foam spilling over the top of glass.

“Bottoms up lads!” Youhara shouts, grabbing the heavy glass and starting to drink it extremely fast. We did the same, chugging the whole pint almost instantly. The smell was intoxicating, but the taste was of sweet, bubbly apple. The effects of being drunk is almost instant. The second I slam the mug on the wooden bar, my vision blurred slightly and an icon appeared on my health-bar.

Wow, this is wack, I thought to myself. In real-life I am only thirteen years old, but this game allows us to drink virtually as it isn’t real.

Kanji stands up, obviously less sober from that pint than us and shouts, “I want to thank my friends here Youhara and Naoki for working their asses off at stupid, low paid jobs.” He throws the mug against the ground and smacks Youhara and I on the back, making us stand-up, Don’t do this to us Kanji.

“If these two were chicks, I would kiss them square on the lips!” Oh god please don’t! The perverted men in the back eyes’ started to widen at the new discovery of Youhara’s actual gender. Youhara punches Kanji to shut him up, but the attempt fails. I look up at the buff timer, one more minute of embarrassment left.

“I loved today as I kicked so much ass and got so much loot, and it was just great.” I look at the entire inn bar population and to my surprise, the lot seems to enjoy this shouting lunatic. They start to lift their drinks and shout heartily in agreement. Maybe the community in this game isn’t absolute shit, I thought to myself.

5…4…3…2…1…blink. Kanji snaps out of his hypnosis and looks around at his surroundings. He sees that everyone was looking at him and that he was suffocating me and Youhara in his armpits. The only sound that he seems to make is “Huh…?” He looks like he was lost and doesn’t remember how he got there and where he is. Silence… I had to intervene or it would get even more awkward.

“Well, look at the time!” I say, patting the confused puppy on the back. “We better get back to the real world and… get some dinner!” I swipe down in the air and searchingly look for the Log-Out button. I pause as I stare at the button that was the Log-Out button. Youhara looks over at my confused face.

“Yo, what’s up?” he asks, flipping on his menu and scrolling down the screen. His face replicates mine.

“Wha- what is this?” The button was gone. Not gone gone, but empty. The text that usually displays the word Log-Out wasn’t displaying, just an empty purple button. Tapping the button would result in the animation flashing but nothing else. Is this a glitch? The gamers that surrounded us did the same, open the menu, scroll down through the options, see the lack-of Log-Out button and standing there with their mouths gapping open.

“Guys, it is just a glitch.” Kanji exclaims calmly. “The Game-Masters will force Log-Out us when the glitch is bug reported.” A reassuring smile appears on his face which calms everyone down. I still look in awe at the empty button, Why would such an obvious glitch be completely missed by the developers, it makes no sense… In a small amount of time, my question will be answered. A blue flash, similar as the flash that is made when people spawn and teleport appears around my view. I hear the inn fill up with voices of confusion and terror as the world around envelops in blue light.
A split second later I was in the Central Square that we initially spawned in. However, slowly but surely, flashes of blue shoot all around me as people appear in the haze of light. After a few seconds, the flashes stop and the square was filled with sounds of chit-chat and utter confusion.

Must be the Game-Masters telling us about the glitch and that they know about it or something trivial like that, I thought to myself. I look through the sea of people to find Kanji and Youhara. Even though their characters were extremely good at standing out, they couldn’t be seen through the field of six feet tall people. I sigh before looking up at the sky now red-amber in color. I see a small red hexagon appear in the sky with text reading “System Announcement” in the center of it. I wasn’t the only one to notice it as everyone was staring at the small message. After a few seconds of staring the bleeping message, it duplicated filling up the sky like cells growing and multiplying. The hexagons started to turn into a red liquid that dropped from the sky, almost in a way like blood.
The blood stopped half way above the ground and started to warp in a particular fashion. After a few seconds of defying physics, the sky blood formed into a faceless, dark mass covered by a red hood. The hooded figure raises his gigantic arms and displays his white gloves before welcoming us to hell.

“Welcome to my world, dear players.”