Fatal Bullet Aftermath

A Call to Arms

(July 7, 2026)

I had no classes today so I decided to just surf the net and see what pops up. I woke up at 3:00 am and went for a run around the campus. It was around 4 am when I got back to my room. Kureha was still snoozing in her bed. Her dark brown hair draped over her pillows.

The whole school year expectation was thrown out of the window when Kureha became my roommate. I mean, who would have thought that we would meet under these circumstances. We have been getting closer together but we generally tended to just leave each other alone.

I grabbed an extra set of clothes and took a shower. It wasn't long before I heard a chime from my phone. It was from Daisuke and it seemed pretty urgent considering he barely texts me.

Daisuke: You need to log into ALO right now.

I had a spare ALO account that has really high tier weapons but it pales in comparison to what I have in GGO.

Kai: Why now?

Daisuke: Just come, there's something going down.

I sighed and grabbed my Amusphere from the bedside table. I placed the visor over my eyes and I lied down in bed.

"Link start," I murmured.

My real-life version was quickly replaced by a flurry of color. The diagnostics ran and I finally logged into my ALO account. I was in Arun with my Spriggian account. The weapon was a one-handed sword and shield.

"Glad you can make it," someone said behind me.

I turned around and saw a salamander player standing there.

"Yeah, good to see you too Daisuke. Now, why exactly do you need me?" I asked.

"Just follow me," he said.

I trailed behind Daisuke and finally reached what seemed to be an auditorium.

"You want me to see something dumb don't you," I conveyed.

"No. This meeting was posted on MMO Today. This has to be serious and I thought you might have wanted to hear about this," he explained.

I ambled inside and found the individual races divided with their leaders standing near the stage. I decided to observe the meeting from the top of the seats. There were 4 people and a pixie standing on the stage. All of them were from different races. There were around 3K or more people in this one dome.

"What is this a peace treaty?" I thought while leaning on the wall.

A woman in pink hair stepped forward to the edge of the stage.

"What I'm telling you guys is not a lie, nor a joke! A Japanese research organization has used our national budget and The Seed to build a virtual world called <<Underworld>>, and thousands of American players who know nothing about are going to dive in and massacre all of the residents inside of it!" the player declared.

She held back slightly before shouting:

"The residents of the Underworld aren't just NPCs! They are true artificial intelligence born from the countless VRMMO worlds that you have all been playing in! They have emotions as we do, they have souls as we do! Please, to protect them, please lend your strength! Please convert the character data that you are all currently using into the Underworld!"

I thought about the absurdity of that claim. I'm pretty sure almost everyone else had the same thoughts as me. I looked down and I saw the Sylph Leader Sakuya stepping forward.

"Lisbeth. I don't think that you and your friends would do all of this just as a prank, and what more, there must be something big if even that Kirito boy hasn't logged in for ten days..." she addressed calmly, "To be honest, however, it's difficult to believe this all of a sudden. There exists AI with human souls and the American military wants them? It feels very far-fetched and the only way to prove its validity is to log in ourselves. But you mentioned that diving into the <<Underworld>> has some issues. Could you please explain those first?"

"Lisbeth? As in Kirito's Friend?" I thought.

There was a long pause in the auditorium. I glanced down at Lisbeth and notice her closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

"She has got to be stressing out right now," I thought while inspecting a throwing dagger.

"Okay, The Underworld is not like a normal VRMMO at all. There are bound to be a few problems with that. First of all, there is no controllable UI in the Underworld meaning that you can't voluntarily log out on your own," she shouted.

That one statement got the whole auditorium to start talking.

"They must be thinking that this might be like <<Sword Art Online>>, but voice commands and the UI were the two ways of logging out of the game developed by the seed," I theorized in my mind.

"The only way to 'die' in the game. That brings me to my next point. In the UNderworld, there's no Pain Absorber. If you take heavy damage that will decrease your HP to zero, you'll most likely experience the most excruciating pain," she continued.

That statement brought more chaos inside of the auditorium. I knew most things came in threes and it seemed like Lisbeth had something to say once all of the chatter ceded.

"One more. The Underworld servers are currently in a state where the developers cannot operate them. Which means...we cannot guarantee that everyone's character data can be converted back to their original games...In some cases, the characters might even be lost," she finished.

There was a small amount of peace before the crowd erupted in rage and frustration. People threw insults at the group declaring this absurd situation. I looked at all of the exits and noticed people leaving.

"This is not going so well," I thought.

I just accepted my loss of time and started to walk down the stairs that lead to an exit. The four on the stage tried to calm everyone down.

"The 'friends' you talk about are just SAO survivors aren't they?! Those guys who make that face that screams 'I'm super special'! I know all of it, you original SAO lot always look down on us!" someone shouted.

I stopped in my tracks and looked at the stage.

"Damn, this stuff just got real," I thought.

I took a seat on the stairway and watched the following events unfold.

"Who cares about artificial intelligence, or national secrets?! Don't get too cocky and bring real-world problems into a VRMMO! You can go by yourself for that kind of stuff! Isn't that better, you splendid, noble Great Survivor?!!" someone screamed.