The First Night

As the game officially began, the outside world was thrown into chaos as well. The public hotlines of the relevant departments were overwhelmed by enraged callers, all of them family members of the nearly ten thousand players.

A game that had only just launched had killed 213 people on its first day. It was the biggest disaster in twenty years. Worse, nearly ten thousand people were still trapped inside the game, their fate unknown. The relevant departments were at their wits' end. They did everything they could to bring the players back to reality, but when they got involved, they learned what it truly meant to be helpless.

Kayaba Akihiko had considered every detail while plotting the incident. He had even abandoned his own body and entered the network. As a result, the madman had left them with an impossible mess—an egg with no cracks. The relevant departments were like flies, able only to stare at it in despair.

With no way to take action, the relevant departments could only try to calm the furious public while making plans to transfer the players, since those trapped in the game still needed daily nutritional supplements.

While grief and anger spread among the public, a joyful atmosphere filled a VIP room at the capital's largest hospital. Spacious and immaculate, it had everything one could need. It looked less like a hospital room and more like a luxurious residence.

A group of people stood beside the snow-white bed. At their head was a middle-aged couple, with a doctor respectfully explaining something to them.

As the couple listened, they kept glancing at the young man lying in bed. His eyes were shut tight, and his face was pale, making him look gravely ill. A device resembling a boxing headguard was strapped to his head: a NerveGear...

"My theory is that the radio waves emitted by the NerveGear stimulated your son's brain nerves, reviving those that had been dying. It's incredible. I can hardly believe it, but your son's condition is simply that extraordinary, so this is the only explanation I can offer." The doctor had graying hair and a trace of authority in his features, but when facing the middle-aged man, he suppressed his usual expression and did his best to act deferentially.

The middle-aged man had a broad face and thick eyebrows. His tiger-like eyes were calm as still water, but the glint that occasionally flashed in them was sharp and intimidating. Hearing the doctor's irresponsible theory, he twitched his heavy brows and stared at the old doctor, a cold light gleaming in his eyes.

The old doctor felt as though a mountain had suddenly loomed over him, bearing down hard enough to crush him to the ground. He even forgot to breathe.

Beside the middle-aged man stood an elegant woman. She gently tugged at her husband's hand to stop him from intimidating the doctor, then asked the dazed old man, "Doctor, is there still a chance my son will wake up?"

Only then did the old doctor come to his senses. He realized his back was drenched in cold sweat and hurriedly lowered his eyes, speaking in a frightened, deferential tone. "Your son's vital signs have all returned to normal. There's a very good chance he'll wake up, but..." He paused, unsure how to continue. But when he saw the middle-aged man's expression change, he immediately went on. "I'm afraid your son won't wake up until Sword Art Online has been cleared. And if what Kayaba Akihiko said is true, then if your son dies in the game..."

The old doctor said no more, but his meaning was clear enough: if the young man woke up, everyone would be overjoyed; if he died, the game would be to blame.

The middle-aged man looked slightly displeased. "You may leave."

The old doctor was as relieved as if he'd been granted a pardon. After a quick farewell, he hurried for the door. The six black-clad bodyguards standing on either side silently moved their tall frames aside, letting him pass without obstruction.

Only after leaving the room did the old doctor realize he was soaked in sweat. He let out a breath, patted his chest, and tried to calm his racing heart. Thank goodness the patient had asked to experience a virtual-reality game during the short time he had left. I didn't dare stop him back then. Otherwise, there'd probably be a news story tomorrow about me dying in the street or perishing in a fire.

After the old doctor left, the middle-aged woman sat in a chair beside the bed. She reached out and gently caressed the young man's pale face, tears streaming down her well-kept cheeks.

"This must be fate. Heaven has finally opened its eyes." She spoke in Chinese.

The middle-aged man gently rested a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. "Don't dwell on it. Xiang is a lucky boy. He'll be fine."

The woman gave a small nod, but she couldn't stop her tears.

"Isn't there any way to wake Xiang up now?" she asked, unwilling to accept it.

The middle-aged man sighed. After rising to power, he had almost forgotten how to sigh. But when his son was told he had only a month left to live, the habit returned like dead ashes catching fire, taking root in his very blood.

He had never sighed in front of others, but when it came to his son, who always wore a faint smile, sighing was the only way to ease his distress.

He had sighed because all his power couldn't stop his son from heading toward death. Then, just when all hope seemed lost, his son escaped the Reaper's grasp—only to fall into another predicament, one he was just as powerless to solve.

The helplessness made the middle-aged man furious, but all he could do was sigh at his own uselessness.

"Being trapped in the game may not be such a bad thing for Xiang. Wasn't his dream, ever since he was a child, to travel the world?" The middle-aged man didn't want his wife to dwell on it, so he changed the subject.

At his words, the middle-aged woman's eyes grew distant. She remembered how her son, once bedridden, had rarely shown such excitement. Back then, he'd held a book in his hands—On the Vastness of the World.

The memory only deepened her tenderness. She gently stroked the handsome face of her sleeping son.

It was the very same face Wang Yang had seen in the mirror.

The day-and-night cycle in Sword Art Online was the same as in reality. Kayaba Akihiko was truly a once-in-an-era genius to have created such a realistic virtual world.

When night fell in the real world, Sword Art Online welcomed its first night. Then, at eight o'clock, the game saw its first player death.

But no one knew that the first player had already died. Most players stayed quietly in the inns in the Town of Beginnings, falling asleep with hope in their hearts and wishing they would wake up in their familiar rooms.

Of the thousand players who had taken part in the Beta Test, more than three hundred chose to give up on leveling at night because it was too dangerous. The remaining seven hundred or so braved the darkness and began to hunt monsters.

A small number of players hadn't yet learned to be cautious, so they charged fearlessly toward the Spawn Points in the night. None of them had taken part in the Beta Test, so they had no idea that monsters' stats increased by thirty percent at night. But greater risk came with greater rewards: monsters also gave thirty percent more experience at night, and their item drop rates increased by the same amount.

This was a hidden setting that only Beta Test players knew about. So most of them went looking for unexplored areas, hoping to find good equipment on the first night.

Naturally, Arthurslin's party had the same idea. When they called Arthurslin to the meeting point, only one person stayed behind to receive her; everyone else went to gather supplies for the night.

They were meeting in front of a fountain in a small plaza on East Street. Arthurslin had brought Wang Yang here more than an hour ago, and he'd been subjected to a spearman's hostile glares for nearly an hour and a half.

Displeasure, dissatisfaction, contempt—the man's eyes made his feelings perfectly clear. He didn't bother to hide them at all. Wang Yang burned with silent anger, while Arthurslin stood awkwardly to the side, unsure what to do.

The reason, of course, was that the spearman considered Wang Yang deadweight. Under normal circumstances, that might have been the extent of his displeasure. But now the game was a matter of life and death, and the drawbacks of bringing along deadweight were magnified without limit.

If he hadn't lacked the authority to decide on his own, Wang Yang probably wouldn't have been left waiting there for nearly two hours.