After Arthurslin instinctively swung her sword, she immediately realized she'd made a mistake. She hurriedly opened her eyes and looked at the man she'd thought was a lunatic. Seeing Wang Yang sprawled on the ground, still alive after her strike, she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
She didn't want to become a red-name player at level 2. If she did, she'd be arrested and thrown in prison the moment she entered town, which would be devastating to her early progress.
Still, Wang Yang's bloodcurdling scream had startled her.
"Are you even a man? You're screaming that loudly over a mere ten percent tactile sensation setting." Now that she was relieved, Arthurslin began mocking Wang Yang for his earlier shriek, deciding he wasn't much of a man.
At her words, Wang Yang was practically in tears. If it didn't hurt, would I be screaming like that?
In Sword Art Online, players could adjust their pain sensitivity up or down. The maximum was sixty percent, just within the limit an adult could endure, while the minimum was zero—meaning you wouldn't feel anything at all. But the default setting for every player was ten percent, and most players didn't change it. After all, a virtual game needed tactile sensation to feel real. Only a few players who wanted the most realistic experience cranked it up to the maximum. With that setting, they could even clearly feel the wind brushing past their cheeks.
Even so, few players set their pain sensitivity to the maximum, since fighting monsters would be pure torture. Arthurslin had assumed that players who ventured out into the field wouldn't set their tactile sensation very high. Most would probably set their pain sensitivity to zero, so they wouldn't feel pain when monsters hit them. She hadn't imagined that the previous owner of the body Wang Yang had taken over had pushed the setting to its limit. That was why the pain Wang Yang felt from being slashed was just like the real thing. It was no wonder he'd screamed so horribly. As a nerd who'd never suffered more than a broken bone, the fact that he'd only cried out was already pretty impressive.
"W-what do you mean, tactile sensation setting?" Wang Yang was still paralyzed, and even speaking felt like a struggle. He lay on the grass and looked up at her in confusion.
Getting slashed had hurt a lot, but the pain hadn't lasted, so Wang Yang was able to ask about it now. Besides, that cold female voice from earlier was still ringing in his ears, and it had left him curious.
Could this really be SAO?
"How did you get into SAO?" Arthurslin asked, staring at Wang Yang in surprise. Hearing him ask a question that showed he was thinking for himself, she realized he wasn't mentally ill.
Wang Yang wondered, Would you believe me if I told you I'd just gone to sleep and somehow ended up inside the Sword Art Online game?
Before Wang Yang could even celebrate that he was in the world of Sword Art Online, he suddenly thought of a serious problem. If this really was Sword Art Online, had the Logout Button disappeared? And how exactly did he exist in this world? Was he a person, too? Had he taken over someone's body, or something like that? If so, wasn't he in danger? In the anime, there had been 213 unlucky players on the first day whose family members ignored the warnings and forcibly unplugged their devices, burning their brains to a crisp. Could he really be unlucky enough to be one of them?
At that point, Wang Yang couldn't even think about what his real-world identity might be. He anxiously tried to call up the system in his mind, but the Virtual System Menu he imagined never appeared. He'd never read the Sword Art Online instruction manual, so he could only rely on what he'd seen in virtual reality game novels. He tried it, but it didn't work. Looking up at the sky, he saw that it had already turned dusky yellow, which meant the Forced Teleportation couldn't be far off.
At the thought, despair washed over Wang Yang...
He really wanted to play a virtual reality game, but not one where he couldn't revive endlessly. Rather than calling Sword Art Online a virtual game, it was more like another real world.
Wang Yang felt like crying. He looked pleadingly at the first player he'd met, Arthurslin. "Um, may I ask your name?"
Arthurslin rolled her eyes and said irritably, "My in-game name is Arthurslin, but I don't have time to deal with you. Bye."
With that, she turned, waved, and started walking toward the Town of Beginnings.
Wang Yang had finally met a player before the game officially began. There was no way he'd let her go so easily. He shamelessly shouted, "Help! I'm being attacked! Someone's trying to kill me!"
Arthurslin stomped hard on the grass as she walked, bringing herself to a stop. Hearing his screams, her face darkened. She rubbed her forehead and sighed. "Why am I so unlucky?"
After sighing, Arthurslin turned around and strode back to Wang Yang, who was lying on the ground. The moment he saw her, he obediently shut his mouth.
"Fine. What do you want?" Arthurslin crouched down with her legs together and asked coldly.
Wang Yang glanced at her tightly pressed thighs and thought what a shame. Then he remembered the predicament he was in and forced a bitter smile.
"Um, Arthurslin, could you tell me how to open the system menu?"
Arthurslin froze. "Is that all?"
Wang Yang nodded vigorously.
Arthurslin's expression immediately fell. She felt as if he'd played her, and was about to stand up and stomp on him, but then she remembered that Wang Yang's health was low and held back. She rubbed her forehead and sighed, then gritted her teeth and stood up. For an instant, Wang Yang caught a glimpse of pink beneath her battle skirt.
Several black lines appeared above Wang Yang's head.
There are safety shorts in the game, too?
Before he could think any further, Arthurslin pointed her index finger at the air and swiped downward. A nearly transparent system menu appeared in front of her.
"Is it really that simple?" This time, it was Wang Yang's turn to freeze. He'd watched the anime, but hadn't expected the menu to appear the same way it did there. He'd assumed the gesture was only meant to add a touch of realism. But this also proved that the world he was in matched the anime—and that when the clock reached five thirty in the afternoon, Kayaba Akihiko would forcibly teleport everyone to the Spawn Point in the Town of Beginnings, the Grand Plaza in front of the Black Iron Palace.
In other words, Wang Yang didn't even need to open the menu to know the Logout Button was gone. He was trapped in this dangerous world!
"Huh? The Logout Button is gone." Arthurslin exclaimed softly. She hadn't intended to show Wang Yang how to bring up the system menu. She'd only noticed it was getting late and was about to log out and get dinner, but then she saw that the Logout Button at the bottom had vanished.
Just as I thought!
Wang Yang's heart sank as he lay on the ground. He didn't know when his paralysis would wear off, and he couldn't tell whether the previous owner of this body had turned off the Health Bar display. He couldn't see whether his health was recovering, so all he could do was anxiously wait. It was torture.
"Could the game be malfunctioning? But this never happened during the beta test," Arthurslin muttered to herself, brows furrowed.
"Um..." Suddenly, she heard an awkward-sounding voice from below. She looked over and saw the freak lying on the ground, grinning ingratiatingly.
Arthurslin calmly backed away several steps.
"..." Wang Yang was hurt by her reaction.
"I just wanted to ask if you have any items that restore health. Do you have to be so wary of me?"
"Who knows what a pervert like you is up to? And it's still the early stages of the game. Who would spend their limited Kael on health-restoring items?" Arthurslin pursed her lips.
Her calling him a pervert felt like a sword through Wang Yang's heart. He silently thought, A good man doesn't argue with a wicked woman.
"Then what time is it?" With no healing items, Wang Yang had no choice but to ask about the time.
At his question, Arthurslin instinctively glanced at the clock in the lower-right corner of her vision and replied casually, "It's exactly five thirty."
"What!?" Wang Yang cried out. Just then, the sound of bells rang out from the distance without warning, booming with a magnificent resonance.
The bells startled Arthurslin. She thought the GM might be about to make an announcement because the Logout Button was missing, but Wang Yang's heart skipped a beat.
No one knew better than he did what those bells meant!
The bigger problem was, would he appear in the middle of the crowd while still lying on the ground?
I don't want to!
Wang Yang screamed internally as a blue light suddenly appeared out of nowhere, enveloping him and Arthurslin.
Before the two of them could react, they were already standing in the plaza in front of the Black Iron Palace.
Looking at the familiar scene before her, Arthurslin exclaimed in surprise, "This is teleportation, but..."
She didn't finish. She immediately fell silent as streaks of blue light appeared across the plaza. As each one faded, a figure materialized out of thin air. In just a few breaths, the entire plaza was packed.
She had no doubt that there were nearly ten thousand people in the plaza. At the same time, she failed to notice that the person she'd thought was a pervert was lying at her feet in a very convenient position—he could see the view beneath her battle skirt without even looking up.
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