I woke up in bed, Looking at the ceiling and hardly remembering what had happened the day before. I sat up from the bed, looking down at my clothes that I was wearing. “What did I do…” I thought to myself as I stood up and opened my menu.

Out of nowhere, I felt a sudden pain in my head as some memories flooded back, stumbling forward a bit and caught myself at the door. “The…The girl..!” I muttered and thought at the same time, Opening the door and running out of the Inn without my gear on hand.

I looked down at myself and opened my menu, equipping my straight-sword and my Celestial Coat. “Now where is she!” I looked around as I tried to remember where the incident happened. “Damn it!” I thought to myself after I couldn’t remember, running out of the Town of Beginnings and towards Boar forest. “Shit! Why can’t I remember!!” I thought again, feeling anxiety build up as well as making sharp turns around treelines.

After a third sharp turn, I then ran into Sato along the way, ramming into him as both of us dropped to the floor. “Ow, the hell was that for?” Sato said in a surprisingly calm tone as I looked at him and quickly began to ask him a couple of questions.

“Do you know a girl that’s about two inches shorter than me!?!” (I’m around 5’8)

“Have you seen a girl with silver eyes!”

“What happened last night!!”

I questioned profusely, trying to figure it out myself as Sato shook his head at all of the questions I asked. I sighed as the anxiety kept building up more and more, Sato then patted his hand onto my back saying to me “Hey don’t worry about it, we’ll find this person Kirin” as I looked at him.

He smiled at me with confidence backing up his smile, it comforted me a bit as he got up from the floor and lended a hand out to me. I felt relieved but also scared to find out the truth, nevertheless I grabbed onto his hand and helped myself back up with his help.

“Thanks, I guess I needed a pep talk from a friend”

I told Sato straight as he chuckled and replied to it in a friendly manner, “Yeah, I guess finding out about this whole thing and trying to keep things together can put a toll on someone.”.

After he said that he then asked me “Hey I found a dungeon not too far from here, you wanna go check it out with me?”, as for my response I just nodded and basically agreed to go with him. I followed behind Sato as we headed towards this “Dungeon” that he found not too far from the forest. “So.. Who’s this girl you’re so uptight about Kirin?” Sato said out of the blue as It caught me so off guard I jumped a little.

“Sheesh, I didn’t expect that kind of reaction from you”

Sato said surprised as my face grew a little red and shouted at him in a slightly angered tone “Shut up! She’s a friend I met alright!”. Sato chuckled a bit replying “Alright alright, but really though, who is this girl you’re so pent up on finding?” as his tone shifted in a blink of an eye.

I took a bit of thought about it as I couldn’t remember any details on why I needed to find this person so badly. “I…don’t really remember why…” I responded as Sato was surprised and concerned about the response he got. “So you met this girl and you don’t remember what you did?” He said trying to get the gist of what my explanation was, I nodded shortly after.

“That’s odd… Your Nervegear isn’t damaged, is it?”

Sato said concerned as I shook my head replying “No.. It’s still new” as I felt what was a connection delay on my HUD, game, and experience overall. “Hey Sato?” I said as Sato looked back and he noticed he was significantly farther away from me.

A message then appeared on my hud saying “Your Internet Connection has been lost… Reconnecting to the server, This may take time to reconnect” as my heart dropped in the moment. “No…Nononono..!” I shouted as I couldn’t move my character, as if my character had been frozen in time. Another message then popped up saying “If connection isn’t found within 10 minutes, You will be automatically disconnected from the server” as I began to have my anxiety attack as well.

“No, I don't want to die! Not here!!” I thought to myself as everything around me was grayscale, all colors had lost their touch and everything was frozen in place, except a textbox and a connection circle on my HUD. The textbox said “Reconnecting…” as the reconnection circle kept circulating.

“Am… Am I going to really die here…?” I took more thought into it as I was thinking about my final moments. “If…If I really am going to die here…I…I might as well just say goodbye to what I hold dear..” I thought as my train of thought kept going, “I…I should have been more into school like my siblings… Leaving my family one sibling short…An older sister and a younger brother… I guess I can’t really be relied on at all…She was right…”. Six minutes have passed as I looked back at my mistakes.

I then thought to myself“I’m sorry…Really sorry for being such a mess and fuck up…” as I ready’d my mentality for everything to just go dark. At Nine minutes I waited for it to hit the Ten minute mark, ready for everything to just vanish and everything to go dark. Suddenly a wind chime sound clicked through my ears as the sound of a new textbox had appeared on my HUD, on the new Textbox it said “Reconnected to server” as the grayscale started to regain its color.

I couldn’t believe it, I somehow managed to get a new Wifi connection as Sato kept poking at my face. “Hey are you really okay Kirin?” Sato said to me as he pointed out “You’ve been crying for almost Ten minutes” as I blinked and looked at him. I then began to tear up more as I hugged him without a second thought, Sato on the other hand was very confused at what happened.

“I…I never thought I’d be so happy to see you after Ten minutes…” I said to Sato as he questioned “Okay, explain what happened in Ten minutes?” as I began explaining to him my Wifi reconnection problem.

Sato and I sat nearby where I had my little breakdown of joy to see someone after Ten minutes. “I see… I’m glad you did make it out of it safe and sound Kirin” Sato said to me as I nodded to agree with him, He then got up saying “c’mon we have a dungeon to go to” as he began heading over towards where we were supposed to go.

I followed shortly behind as my memory of what happened on the first night came rushing back. I was speechless but nevertheless pushed onward to keep it locked away for a good amount of time. I felt like the near-death experience had taught me to value what I have not just in the real world but also what I have gone through and have to go through.

We then arrived at the dungeon that Sato talked about, seeing the doors unopened. “So we’re the first ones?” I asked Sato as he nodded, replying “Yep, we are!” as he opened the doors so casually. The dungeon doors swung open at a slow to medium pace as we both walked into the dungeon.

I unsheathed my sword as Sato did the same, we approached into a hallway as a Demonic Servant then manifested from nearby bones, a helmet, and a sword. We stood our ground as we were already level 5 to level 6, carrying around decently strong weapons as well to back up our levels. The demonic servant roared out before swinging his giant sword at Sato. Sato managed to dodge it and get a counter swing at the Demonic Servant, damaging it but not enough.

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The Demonic servant seemed more irritated at our attacks than angry, as the Demonic Servant then rushed towards me and rammed into me at full speed, I blocked the hit but I was sent flying and crashed into a wall dropping my sword and dropping down to low green HP. Sato shouted at me “Are you alright Kirin!” as I got back up and picked up my sword shouting “Yeah! Just in a lot of pain!” as I rushed towards the Demonic Servant.

“I have his aggro! Start swinging Sato!!”

I shouted at him as the Demonic Servant then charged up an attack and swung a heavy attack at me. I ducked under the attack and activated a sword skill Vertical Arc as I swung at an angle up. Quickly after that, I then swiftly swung again at an angle but downwards, creating an upside down V shape.

The Demonic Servant's health dropped to lower yellow as Sato caught it’s aggro by cutting it’s back before it could use it’s aggro on me. “Hey over here!” Sato shouted as he also activated a sword skill Sonic Leap. Sato began running towards the Demonic Servant as he jumped and slashed down onto it, dropping its health down to red as I swung a horizontal slash at the Servant's back, dropping its health down to zero.

The servant then roared out once more before shattering into polygons, along with Sato falling onto his face. I was a little exhausted from it as Sato sat up saying to me “That was fun! We should continue looking through” as I was more concerned about his mentality rather than our safety. “I guess…we can keep going…” I said exhaustively as I sat down as well, He smiled at me as I gave him a small smile, exchanging a high five with each other as we continued to explore the dungeon.

Throughout the dungeon, we ran into multiple Demonic Servants, nearly dying on multiple occasions. We then finally reached the treasure that was kept at the end of the dungeon, Sato opened the treasure chest as we both had gotten different items but the same amount of Col and EXP from the dungeon.

“Hey Sato, what did you get?”

I said to him as he turned to me holding a new sword, the handle seemed bland at first but the hilt and the blade itself looked more stylish, the hilt having a gold and silver coloring with the blade itself being a deep gray metallic color with etchings near the tip and the hilt of the blade. “That’s a pretty blade…” I said to him as he asked me “What did you get?”.

I replied to him “All I got was some crystals… What's your sword called?” as I got up and walked over to him as he held his sword. I tapped on his sword to see its stats, I looked at the name as it was called SteelEdge Sword. Its stats were pretty decent with 20 Dmg, 25 Dex, and 10 Weight.

“I think you got the better end of the dungeon”

I said to him as Sato chuckled with a bit of laughter, I looked at him and showed him a crystal as it was the only thing I got from the dungeon. “What can you do with that?” Sato asked me as I looked at it and took a deeper thought about it. “Maybe I could make it into a weapon or something, but doesn’t that require more materials?” I asked as he promptly nodded at me before we both headed out of the dungeon.

“Well we had a pretty good time there”

Sato said to me as I sighed, trying not to ruin the good vibes he had on I replied “Yeah, I won’t lie I did have a bit of fun there”. We began heading towards a rumored town that was on the other side of Boar Forest. I knew there was a town called Tolbana at the end of the forest, but I didn’t know if Sato knew and I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.

We continued heading towards the other side of Boar Forest as we reached an open field, this time filled with Wolves and Blood Wolves nearby. “Well… This could have been worse..” I thought to myself as Sato and I heard a loud scream not too far from our location. We both rushed over to what we thought was the nick of time, but was rather the opposite of what we hoped for. We had actually arrived at the worst possible time, with a group of three players having died right in-front of us.

The Wolves then turned their attention to us as Sato and I had to get ready to fight. The wolves then charged towards us as Sato charged up a Horizontal Slash, I also did the same but a Vertical Slash instead. One of the wolves then jumped at us as I slashed at the Wolf, hitting it and knocking it back. The other two wolves then rushed at us directly as Sato used his horizontal slash to cut both wolves, shattering them into polygons.

“That was a good hit Sato”

I complimented him as He nodded and said “If you didn’t catch that wolf that jumped at us we would have been goners”. We both looked at each other as we stayed silent for a bit, still a little shaken by the recent deaths we’ve witnessed.

“Kirin let's get moving”

Sato said as he tried to break the silence, I looked at him and nodded as we headed over to a dirt pathway in the open field. We walked for some time as I heard a voice cry out “Help!! Kirin Help!!” We both stopped as we saw Rina running towards us at point break speed. She then ran behind me and stayed behind me as we saw a blood wolf running at us.

“Rina stay behind me!”

I said as Sato and I pulled out our swords again and tried to engage the fight to the blood wolf. Sato rushed in and swung at the wolf but missed after it dodged Sato’s attempt. I readied myself as the blood wolf ran in-between my legs and headed straight towards Rina.

“Rina parry the attack!!”

I shouted at her as she pulled out the dagger I gave her on the first day, she then braced for the blood wolf’s attack as she accidentally parried the hit. “Now’s your chance!!” I shouted at her as she looked and the blood wolf was in a stunned state. She took no time to slash the blood wolf multiple times at a quick pace. “You did it Rina!” I said as I ran over sheathing my sword. She looked at me with mixed emotions running through her head.

“I…I…”

Rina stuttered, still shaken at what happened as I tried to comfort her. “Hey calm down Rina” I said as she dropped the dagger and hugged him. My face turned red as Rina said “I…I don’t think I would have survived…” as I helped her up and handed her a teleport crystal. “Rina use this and get back to the Town of Beginnings” I told her as she looked at it and looked back at me, asking me “What about you?”.

“I’ll be okay, I can handle whatever is out here”

I said to her to comfort her as she used the Teleport crystal to teleport to the Town of Beginnings, “let’s keep going Sato” I said to him as he said “Lead the way” following behind me. We began walking towards Tolbana as we saw the small town not too far from us. “Huh so there is a town outside of here” I said as we headed over to Tolbana without a second thought. As we walked into Tolbana, a Safezone effect was applied as Sato exhaled with relief.

“A Safe Zone… finally..”

Sato said as we sat down on a bench as we both exhaled with relief. “Man it feels nice to be on a bench for some reason” Sato said as I replied “Yeah same..” as we both then heard a ruckus nearby. We then saw a man standing out from the crowd, shouting about a meeting. We hardly heard anything as Sato and I were tired down to our virtual bones.

We both looked at an Inn nearby as we headed over to the Inn, getting separate rooms to sleep in for the time. “Man it’s already noon…” I thought to myself as I looked out the window and saw the sun beginning to set. “I could use some sleep for now…” I thought again as I laid down onto the bed and looked at the ceiling, wearing no gear but my normal clothes.

I then swiped to open my menu and checked my level out of curiosity, “Level 8…” I thought once again as I tried to sleep for the evening. Within my dream, I woke up within my bedroom. I turned my head to the side, seeing my room where all my things were set up. “A..Dream..?” I thought as I tried to get up but couldn’t even if I wanted to, “Dreams…Is it possible to dream within a virtual world…?” I thought as my dream severed from my sleep, waking up around 5 in the morning.

I opened my eyes to see the door of the Inn, seeing orange and yellow slowly rising up, sitting up and feeling the gust of wind come in from the open window. “This…This is my new life now…” I thought to myself as my train of thought went on.

“Maybe…It might not be that bad…It’s…very beautiful… Maybe…I can be happy here… be someone I couldn’t before…” as my train of thought was stopped from the sounds of chattering outside. I got up and equipped my armor again and left the Inn and headed towards the coliseum. “Maybe I can meet more Beta testers around here..” I thought as I walked into the coliseum and looked at the players sitting there.

One of the players that was there I instantly recognized, His black hair and gray eyes were almost recognizable for any other beta players that were around, we looked and glared at each other as we recognized each other. His name…was Kirito…