Sword Art Online Millennium Canvas

Chapter 7: First Quest

I was lying on a bed and opened my eyes, sucked in a deep breath. Another day has passed and I'm still stagnant. I still can't believe that the most anticipated game became a terrifying death prison. Ten thousand players are trapped inside, minus the two hundred and thirty players who forcefully removed the nerve gear and as a result lost their lives.

A week has passed since Kayaba Akihiko declared that Sword Art Online become a death game. This is the first that I'm lost in thought, confusion, anxiety, and despair can be felt swelling inside me like a balloon that is about to pop. I don't know what to do next; I hammered the right side of the bed with my right clenched fist and a single tear fell out of my right eye.

I didn't even dare come out of the City of Beginning. I was in such a loss; I don't know what to do, I wish my elder brother was here to help me. He always knew what to do.

Speaking of elder brother just how was the condition of the real world now? There was no doubt that a huge uproar had occurred. Beside me, lying down on my bed in my room with the Nerve Gear on my head, my elder brother might be in despair right now. But I still wonder just what is he feeling right now. Shock? Doubt? Fear? Or maybe grief?

A notification window appeared in front of me. I tapped it with my left index finger, a message immerged coming from Kyle.

"SF where are you, it's already been a week since I've seen you. You disappeared after the announcement"

I unconsciously released a loud chuckle. Kyle was right; I was so frightened that after the announcement I left them in the plaza, I am such a coward. But to make matter worse Kayaba gave each one of us an item called mirror. This mirror rearranged our avatar appearance making our face and body looked like our original body in the real world.

Now I don't even know what my friends looked like. I opened my window menu showing me my character information. Seeing my level (which is level four) made me frustrated. Is this it? Where's my excitement and enthusiasm before knowing that this is a death game? NO! This is not the end. I will not surrender, I accept your challenge Kayaba Akihiko, I thought. I bit my lower lip and replied to Kyle "Meet me in our usual meeting place."

I immediately stood up and reequipped all of my armaments. My blue peasant shirt, brown tonic pants, brown leather boots, brown leather armour, and most important of all I reequipped my level one rusty short sword.

I took a deep breath, showing my newly found vigour. A sickening grin appeared on my face, I took a step forward, and then another until I was out of my room (inside the inn) steadily increased to a light jog. When I was out of the inn, I sprinted with all my agility can provide.

I passed a lot of weapon shops on the way, and I noticed that a lot of players are still inside the City of Beginning. Which mean I'm not the only one who is afraid of coming out of the safety zone; it make sense since they are still incapable of facing death head on.

I arrived in front of the Cathedral panting heavily. I can still get tired inside the game, there are two reasons why. First of all my level is still not high enough, if its insufficient I cannot acquire stat points that can increased my stamina, and another reason is I cannot gain skill points which is needed to obtain abilities in the game (such as movement speed, single step burst speed, movement acceleration, etc.) At the start of the game I was given two skill points and three stat points. And now I'm level four which mean I have twelve points for stat; I placed seven of my stat points in strength and five points to agility.

For my skill points, I have a lot of variety for abilities that I might need but knowing that this is a death game now, I invested four on Sword Mastery, two on Detect, and another two on Battle Healing.

There are three ways in gaining skill points, you can increased it by levelling-up, another is doing quest, or reward on quest and lastly enquire for training in an NPC (non-player character) dojo.

Suddenly someone poked me in the back and I instinctively jump forward and turned around to face that person.

"Haha, revenge time" said by a blond girl with a wide grin on her face "you should have seen you face, precious" she added while releasing a soft chuckle.

I quickly muttered "Who are you?"

The blond girl's wide grin disappeared, made a confused look and then said "Oh, yeah I forgot. My avatar appearance got altered and now you're seeing the real me. It's me Kyle"

"WHAT!" to my surprised I unconsciously muttered in a loud shout "I thought you're a guy?" I continued

Kyle made a pout face while crossing her arms "Of course you do, I was posing as guy, but it's still me you're teammate and party member" Kyle said in an irritated tone.

"Yeah, yeah" I said in defeat, I looked around and asked "Where are Syler and Kitaro?"

"Follow me..." said Kyle

I followed Kyle in the lower levels of City of Beginning.

"We were about to do a quest despite you not joining us" said Kyle in a cold tone.

I've got a bad feeling about this quest I thought "About that, I'm really sorry for not joining you after" I said in an apologetic tone.

"Don't worry about that" Kyle told me before I could finish my sentence.

We stopped in front of a wall, and then Kyle placed a hand on it, With soft grating sound, a piece of it slid upwards, revealing a tunnel.

Kyle guided me through the dingy tunnel; we were silent throughout the trip. The tunnel opened up a large underground cave; three people were hunched over a wide circular table with serious expression. No one even looked at us, as we entered the cave.

Two of them must be Syler and Kitaro but who is the third one I thought.

Kyle guided me towards the nearest chair which I immediately sat down and then Kyle sat down beside me.

"Before we start, I apologize for being late. I was on an errand to retrieve another member" said Kyle then turn her face to look at me.

I instantly stood up, bowed and introduced myself "Sorry for being late, I was the other member. My name is Silver Frost; you can call me SF for short" after that I sat down again.

The two people in the other side of the table have a wide beautiful smiles on their faces "Looks like you're the one who is late today" said by the boy with spikey orange hair "I'm Syler, nice to finally meet the real you SF" he continued.

Another person beside Syler with brown hair and turquoise eyes said "And I'm Kitaro, nice to meet you too."

Looking at them really stunned me, because there original appearance is not nearly identical to their avatar form before.

"Okay, now that all of you are now acquainted let's move to the quest in progress" I turn my attention to the person with sad eyes and a cigar on his mouth. I will call him stranger.

The stranger showed us a glass vial with black liquid in it.

"What's this? I asked while eyeing the concoction.

"That young man is a strength boost vial. It will permanently increase you Strength by one point" The stranger pointed out "I will make you four of this vials one for each one of you but in exchange bring me the hide of the Dire Boar" the stranger continued.

"We accept" said Syler with full of enthusiasm.