Black Bread

The night was quiet. As time passed, only a few scattered lights remained on the streets. Moonlight spilled down, keeping the town from sinking into darkness. Beneath its glow, not a soul could be seen on Green Stone Slab Road, though several dark figures were visible in the distance around the gates of the Town of Beginnings.

Even among players who hadn't participated in the Beta Test, with nearly ten thousand of them, there were bound to be plenty of capable people.

Clearly, Wang Yang was among the least capable. He'd stumbled into the game and hadn't read the manual, so on his first night he could only huddle in some alley, fumbling around with Sword Art Online's various settings.

Fortunately, as a typical shut-in, Wang Yang had plenty of free time in his daily life and had played many well-known online games. So, once he got past the language barrier, he was able to handle things with ease.

Time slowly passed. When the clock hands reached midnight, Wang Yang was still curled up in the chilly alley. After several hours of fumbling around, he'd begun to get the hang of things, but a sharp pang of hunger had started gnawing at his stomach.

Sitting on the ground with his back against the wall, Wang Yang rubbed his stomach and cursed Kayaba Akihiko. While exploring the System Settings, he'd discovered that Sword Art Online's system was remarkably user-friendly. On top of the default settings, players could customize things themselves.

For instance, they could choose to turn off the cold notification voice. There were also options for whether to display the Health Bar and name, among many other settings that players could choose to use or not as they pleased. Wang Yang guessed that the body's original owner had disabled the name and Health Bar to make the virtual world feel more realistic, and had also set all five senses to the maximum. But now Wang Yang couldn't find any settings related to Tactile Sensation. He figured they'd disappeared along with the Logout Button.

Even though the setting was gone, the hunger in his stomach was being transmitted to his brain as vividly as ever.

"With only a thousand Kael in Starting Funds, the only place open now is probably an inn. Until I know how much equipment and food cost, I'd better save my money." Wang Yang curled up between two wooden barrels and muttered to himself.

Wang Yang had no idea what he could do with a thousand Kael, so he could only wait until tomorrow to check prices in the shops.

Sleeping on a cold floor in the middle of the night was miserable. Wang Yang, who'd never endured this sort of hardship, kept trying to convince himself to give up and get a comfortable night's sleep at an inn. But when he thought about the future, he gritted his teeth and held out. It was a good thing he usually kept up with playing basketball; otherwise, if he'd been a typical shut-in, he wouldn't have cared about any of this and would've headed straight to an inn.

Wang Yang understood that even if he slept comfortably now, it would only make things harder for him later.

The anime had once shown what the players' situation was like a month later. Those who'd spent money without restraint had it the worst. Once their money ran out, they still weren't capable of earning any by fighting monsters, and ended up in dire straits. Wang Yang didn't know whether anyone would actually starve to death, but he didn't want to end up like that. It was also because he'd seen the anime that he'd given up on waiting safely for two years, until the day Kirito succeeded in clearing the game...

In a sense, in this game, Combat Power was equivalent to Survival Ability.

Mulling over these things, Wang Yang drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, Wang Yang was woken by the sounds coming from outside the alley. As soon as he opened his eyes, discomfort washed over his entire body: aching, stinging pain, and numbness. He sucked in a sharp breath.

Compared to the soreness all over, the sword in his stomach was even worse.

"Ugh... I'm so hungry." Wang Yang struggled to his feet, using a wooden barrel for support. His legs trembled weakly, and his stomach wasn't just hungry—it was cramping, too.

Rubbing his bleary eyes, Wang Yang didn't hurry to buy food. Instead, he started moving his body, gradually picking up the pace. Only after the numbness in his limbs had faded did he leave the alley.

The inside and outside of the alley were like two different worlds. Passersby glanced at Wang Yang as he came out, then quickly looked away.

The sun had only just risen, but there were already plenty of people coming and going on the streets. Wang Yang glanced above the crowd and saw only a handful of Green Diamond Symbols. He paused, then carefully observed the people passing in front of him—or rather, the NPCs.

After observing them for a while, Wang Yang realized that the NPCs in Sword Art Online were indistinguishable from other people. Unfortunately, the hollowness in their eyes showed that these numerous NPCs had no intelligence.

Seeing this, Wang Yang felt relieved. If even a passerby had intelligence, this world would be truly terrifying—and Kayaba Akihiko, the one who'd created it, would be even more terrifying.

Putting those thoughts aside, Wang Yang opened the World Map of the Town of Beginnings and headed toward the shop, walking into the sunlight.

The Town of Beginnings covered a vast area, about as large as Tokyo, Japan. Centered on the plaza in front of the Black Iron Palace, four straight streets stretched out in the four cardinal directions. Buildings in a medieval style lined both sides of each street, forming the sprawling Town of Beginnings.

Wang Yang was on East Street. Using the map, he quickly reached a nicely decorated shop and pushed open the door. There were already quite a few people inside, about twenty in all, and every one of them had the symbol that identified them as a player above their head.

Wang Yang's arrival didn't attract the slightest attention from the players in the shop. Instead, he began observing them. After only a few glances, he noticed something.

Five or six of the more than twenty people looked exhausted. That suggested they'd spent the previous night grinding monsters and leveling up, staying out until dawn and ending up visibly tired.

Wang Yang hesitated for a while, but in the end, he gave up on asking them for advice. After what had happened the night before, he had no desire to try.

If it were Kirito...

He shook his head discreetly, thinking that Kirito was probably already far ahead. He rubbed his stomach and walked toward the food counter.

The food counter consisted of two glass cases joined together, each with a curved front. The left case displayed pastries that looked extremely expensive, while the right held various kinds of bread. The difference between the two was obvious at a glance.

Looking at the strawberry cake in the left case, Wang Yang tried tapping the glass with his index finger. A virtual window popped up in front of him, listing the price as 25 Kael.

He'd started out with 1,000 Kael, yet a single strawberry cake cost 25. If he ate just one a day, his money would last only forty days. And Wang Yang didn't think a single strawberry cake a day would keep his stomach from protesting.

Clearly, everything in the left case was a luxury like the strawberry cake. So, after swallowing and eyeing it for a few moments, he shifted his gaze to the right case and tapped on the worst-looking black bread. The window that popped up listed the price as 1 Kael!

"That's so cheap." Without a second thought, Wang Yang bought twenty in one go, then left the shop without looking back. He was afraid that if he stayed any longer, he wouldn't be able to resist buying a strawberry cake.

After leaving the shop, Wang Yang found a chair beneath a streetlamp and dropped into it. He hurriedly materialized a piece of black bread and took a big bite.

"Are you kidding me?!"

The bread was dry and coarse, with even a faint bitterness spreading across his tongue. Wang Yang's face darkened.