Sword Art Online ー The Cloaked Swordsmen

Chapter 3 - The beginning

"Hey... what is this? It's just really weird. Right now, we can't get out of this game!"

Klein said with an uneasy laugh, while approaching me and Kirito. He probably noticed the slight panic in my voice so he began to panic from exposure.

"Alright, listen up Kirito, you too Klein... just calm down. I just got intel from the rat." I stated with a serious tone, while looking at Kirito and Klein to make sure they were listening. Checking their condition, they seemed to be okay.

"Alright, what is it? What did Argo say? Is this happening for everyone else?" Kirito questioned while looking panicked.

"Well, presumably... yes. Though she never said anything like that. Furthermore, she said that the <Chamber of Resurrection> is... missing." I explained while hiding my worries to keep them from going into panic.

"Resurrection? Is that some kind of respawn point?" Klein raised a question.

"Yeah, basically. Keika, what do you mean it's missing? Without that, we won't be able to respawn..." Kirito pointed out with a worried look.

"Exactly. Apparently it was replaced by some kind of Monument... I'll check it out when I have the time myself, but for now you need to understand thisー"

Before I could finish my sentence a chiming noise like a bell or perhaps a warning chime clanged loudly, making us jump in surprise.

"Ah..."

"What's this!?" Kirito and Klein shouted at the same time.

"Wait! I wasn't done explainingー!"

I yelled as Kirito and I stared at each other, eyes wide as I pulled him closer as we were immersed in a clear blue pillar of light.

"It's a forced teleport!"

I yelled as the light around me pulsed stronger and darkness overtook my sights and when the blue light faded, my surroundings became clear again.

However, we were no longer in the plains outside of the town anymore.

Underneath my feet was a large road paved with stone. Medieval streets surrounded by street-lamps and the huge palace radiating a dark light a fair distance away up ahead.

This was the starting point, the central plaza of the <Starting City>. Then, I looked around the bustling crowd of people that surrounded us, in an attempt to find Argo.

Looking at the bunch of stunningly beautiful people with a variety of equipment, I spotted her quite quickly due to her make up, which gave her the look of a woodland creature.

I let out a sigh of relief and continued to look around for my guild members, and the noob I encountered during the beta test, but they could not be seen most likely due to the sheer size of the crowd.

There were about a few thousand... no, ten thousand people here. It was likely that everyone who was logged on right now had been forcefully transported to the central plaza.

mumbles and mutters could be heard here and there which gradually became louder.

"What's happening?"

"Can we log out now?"

"Can't they take care of it quickly?"

Comments like these could be heard from time to time. As the players started to get more annoyed, shouts like "Is this a joke?" and "Get the hell out here, GMs!" could be heard. Then as I looked up, I saw the bottom of the second floor being checkered in red.

"Up there! What is that?!" I exclaimed, gaining the attention of the other players as Klein and Kirito almost automatically turned their eyes upward.

I squinted my eyes and looked closely, I could see that the pattern was made up of two phrases Overlapping each other: the words [Warning] and [System Announcement] was written in red.