The Black Swordsman

Chapter 7: Hell Pt. 1

The Day of The SAO Incident:

It's a bummer that my brother didn't get a chance to play this stupid thing after spending so much money on it, thought Asuna as she stared at a weird helmet-looking device that her brother had bought.

Her brother had mentioned that it was some kind of Virtual Reality helmet that could play a variety of games, one of which was called Sword Art Online. Asuna had heard a lot of kids her age talking about how much fun Sword Art Online was during something that was called a beta. After asking her brother what a "beta' was, he explained that it was just an opportunity for people to try the game before it released as its final product. It was a Sunday afternoon and Asuna's brother had just left for a business trip. Before he left, he recommended that Asuna give the game a try. He had said it might be a nice break from all of the studying she had been doing.

Maybe, he's right. I have been doing a lot of studying, lately. Even more than usual. A break from it might actually do me some good but video games? That's a bit outside of my comfort zone. Hm.

Asuna sighed, not seeing the harm in trying the silly game.

"How does this thing even work?" Asuna muttered as she picked up the strange looking helmet which her brother had called a Nerve Gear. "I think my brother said something about putting it on and saying 'link start' once it was connected. Doesn't sound too hard, I guess."

Asuna placed the Nerve Gear on her head, carefully, trying desperately not to mess up her hair too much. She laid on her brother's bed, staring up at the ceiling. After a couple of seconds, text saying that the Nerve Gear was ready to be connected appeared in front of Asuna.

"Uh...Link Start", Asuna said, trying to remember exactly what her brother told her to say. Everything around her immediately turned white and before she knew it, she was no longer inside of her brother's bedroom. For the first time in her life, she was inside of a Virtual Reality...a world that she was not accustomed to in the slightest and unaware of the danger that laid ahead of her.

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Initially, Asuna was very confused. Before she was able to travel to the world of Sword Art Online, she was forced to create a character and a username for her character. Clueless as to what to make her username, she decided to just use her full name, "Asuna Yuuki", and kept the appearance of her in-game avatar very similar to what she looked like in the real world, not seeing the point of changing it too much. After she was done customizing her in-game avatar, she was immediately transported to the world of Aincrad which was apparently what the world of Sword Art Online was called.

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The strange customization screen was gone and replaced with a beautiful landscape that consisted of both mountainous areas and green forest areas. The setting sun inside of the game only added to the atmosphere of the world that Asuna found herself in. She glanced around and couldn't get over how realistic everything looked. In the distance, Asuna saw a rather large town. Not knowing what else to do, since she had never played a video game in her entire life, she decided to head towards the town, hoping it would give her more insight about what to do inside of the game.

Asuna started to walk in the direction of the town and even the simple movement of walking felt incredibly realistic. It was almost like she was actually walking in the real world but she knew that couldn't be the case. Her brother had told her that no matter what action that she executed inside of the game world, her body would just be laying down in the real world with the Nerve Gear on her head. The next thought that popped into Asuna's mind was what her mother would do if she busted Asuna using her brother's Nerve Gear while inside of his room. The more she thought about it, the more she realized how unlikely it was that her mother would bother to leave her office to check on her which only made her feel sadder. Asuna shook the thought from her mind and focused on her current task which was reaching the nearby town.