Chapter 3 - The Situation

2nd December 2022

Tolbana, 1st Floor

From my point of view, there were three groups of players that distinguished themselves in the first month SAO was launched.

The first group of players were what I personally called the ' town dwellers'. They never did much to leave the Town of Beginnings, and only survived because of the safe zone the Town

had. Some of them felt despair, and desperately wanted to escape this game as soon as possible. The only way for one's HP gauge to reach zero in the safe zone is to jump off the edge of the first floor, and I heard stories of players having done that. None of them got revived.

Aside from confirming what Kayaba said was truth and fact, the second group of players slowly accepted the harsh reality of this game and started to go out to earn EXP for themselves and level themselves up. This happened 2 days after I started my own journey to progress the 1st floor, when I started to notice a definite increase in the number of players near me while revisiting areas for the purpose of completing quests that pop up in my 'Quests' section of my menu after exploring each area. These kind of quests usually yield great rewards, and I had to suppress my frustration to backtrack to the area just to complete it. There might be even more quests yet to be found on the 1st floor, but I guess only the beta testers would know how to trigger them.

The third group of players leveled up much faster than the majority of the players, and had the strongest determination to clear the game among the player population, which by then had shrunk to about 8000, after checking on the player name board that belonged to a place called the Black Iron Castle in one of my visits back at the Town of Beginnings.

Looking at the crossed out names really reminded me of the truth that SAO was a death game, and it had to completed no matter what.

Guilds also started to form during the first month after the SAO launch, such as [The Army], which wore matching uniforms, for reasons I never did bother finding out.

SAO was no doubt a death game itself, but it gave us players a valuable asset to survive : Sword Skills. They deal more damage than just hurling raw swings at enemies, and were a must to acquire.

In my case, the first Sword Skill I could use when starting off with a spear was the 2-hit spear skill Twin Thrust. Many other spear sword skills were unlocked as I leveled up my Spear skill, and as long as I had enough skill points, I could use them to my heart's content, only worrying about how much SP (stamina points) they would use up.

Defeating monsters and using items causes them to disperse in shiny blue pixels that either drops materials that were needed to upgrade or craft weapons, or grants you something positive to happen to you, depending on what item you used.

In each floor there was a giant pillar which connects to the floor above it, called a Labyrinth due to the maze-like structure of the place. The main goal on each floor is simple : defeat the final boss there, and the next floor opens up to every player either via the Teleport Gate Plaza or taking the stairs from the boss room where the boss was defeated. But defeating the main boss on each floor was never something either of the players could do on their own.

As I stepped into the settlement of Tolbana, which was nearest to the Labyrinth on the 1st floor as a Level 9 spearman, spear strapped to my back, I felt the satisfaction to have finally completed all the quests found in this place. The NPCs here really are quite demanding, I thought, though maybe I was the only player thinking that way.

Anyway, after forming a considerable number of temporary parties with other players while doing those quests (I was never one to stick around with any player a lot), I still had to show my gratitude to the free guide that I got back at the Town of Beginnings, which was reproduced and issued by a beta tester, who goes by the name of 'The Rat'. Who ever resists free stuff that can help you progress safely in a death game?

Tolbana offers way better crafting and upgrading services than the Town of Beginnings. Plus it's aesthetically appealing, complete with a town square and what seemed to look like a threatre from the Roman times.

As I was walking along the top curve of the threatre back to my recently rented inn, I heard what sounded like a shout across the threatre.

"Tomorrow we'll have a meeting at the threatre about defeating the main boss on the 1st floor! Those who are strong enough to raid the boss are welcome to join the meeting!"

I turned and saw a seemingly middle-aged man with blue hair and blue attire, complete with armor and all. A great example of a ready-for-war fighter, in standardized terms at least.

I wore nothing of that sort. I only wore a light brown coat that was just long enough to touch my knee joint, and opted to wear the shirt and jeans that I was wearing when SAO was launched.

My light brown coat, which granted a boost in my agility and dexterity stats, was a lucky monster drop during a quest to collect boar meat for an NPC butcher. It really covered up my weakness in combat, where using a spear generally slows you down while attacking, despite its damage output being higher than an one-handed weapon. Also, I preferred to dodge enemy attacks rather than block them anyway.

I walked up to the man amid my curiosity. The man, who saw me moving towards him immediately brought out his hand for a handshake, " Have you come to ask about the meeting? My name's Diavel."

"Zenalyth." I replied, being a little taken aback by his highly sociable attitude while receiving his handshake with a slow hand. I definitely wasn't the type of guy to introduce himself to a stranger confidently.

Based on what I could hear from the voice translation program, Diavel must have been a native Japanese. Plus the way he moves his mouth proved my guess to be correct.

"Well, Zenalyth, what level are you now?"

That was a really direct question right in my face. It just doesn't seem right to reveal my level, especially with passer-by players walking around me in town.

"Um...not strong enough to fight the boss yet....I guess." I paused my words not because I was afraid Diavel would see me as a weak player, but because I didn't want to disclose my level that readily to anyone yet.

Seemingly oblivious that I gave an indirect answer to his question, Diavel replied," It's okay, when you get stronger come find me tomorrow, which we'll discuss the plan to commence the boss raid the day after."

It was then I realized that nighttime was approaching.

Diavel noticed it too, so he bidded me farewell and went on his way back to whichever inn he was staying in (at least, that's what I thought).

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