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Yo, so it's finally time to get my version of EoS off the ground! I decided to be lazy and essentially just reuse a story chapter I wrote several months back instead of making something all new, for the simple reason that everything about the female Kirito that I wanted to change from Darksyn's version had already been incorporated on some level into that chapter and I just didn't feel like rewriting it all since this version isn't old enough to suck. So I just took the version from that and modified it to fit its new setting.

This story as a whole will be my highly personalized version of the premise that Darksyn is using to write his version. My version of this story is probably going to be absolutely nothing like his version, but I thought it would be instructive to tell you all the main ways that it will differ aside from having a different story. First off, while Darksyn's and mine will both have yuri, the pairings will be different. Darksyn's will be Kiriko/Asuna, whereas mine will be a yuri harem centered around my own completely differently written Kiriko. Second, Darksyn's will have a wide variety of fetish content, both diapered and not, while mine will find a way to put literally every main female lead in diapers relatively quickly after they're introduced. Third, Darksyn's Kiriko will have a DEX/AGI build, while mine will have a STR/AGI hybrid build (also, mine is going to be a solo player who eventually becomes more overpowered than canon Kirito, but you probably won't think of her as a Sue by the time she is). Fourth and finally, the stat scaling for player and monster attributes will, as far as I can tell, be completely different (in my game, no player will start out with more than ten in any stat, and even getting above five in a stat at level one is rare).

That's about it. There's not gonna be any fetish content for a few chapters, fair warning. I tend to prefer to take the time to make my readers care about the characters and the setting before delving into that stuff. The bathroom needs system will still be present in the story before the fetish content, however. With everything I wanted to say out of the way, read on!


Era of Survival: Rise of the Empress

Chapter One: A Little Project

“Big sis, I'm going out for kendo practice!”

The call came from the other side of my bedroom door. I had expected something like this – I'd heard the footsteps as the speaker approached my room loud and clear. I knew that my sister, Suguha, was probably waiting there for any response I could give. Even a simple, one-word reply would have been enough to satisfy her.

Despite this, I didn't say a word or even make a sound. My feet, which I had been dragging from side to side across my stained wooden floor before she approached, had come to a complete halt. Consequently, my black leather computer chair stopped swiveling around, matching my complete stillness and silence to the letter.

The door was locked, as it usually was when I was in my room, so she couldn't just come in whenever she felt like it. Her only way of checking on me was to come up to the door and listen for my voice or sounds of movement. And because she was even more painfully straightforward than I was, she didn't even think of not announcing her presence so obviously, so she called out each time, giving me every chance I needed to react like this.

Knowing all of these things and taking full advantage of them, I remained as quiet and still as humanly possible in order to wait her out. I didn't want her to know I was even awake. And since it was Sunday, the idea that I could still be sleeping in was conceivable, even at such a late time as twelve-fifty in the afternoon.

Eventually, my plan worked. After a grand total of ten seconds of waiting, she began speaking again. “I prepared lunch for you. It's in the fridge whenever you get hungry. In case you're asleep, I'll text you about it in a bit. I'll be hanging out with the club after practice, so I won't be back to log into that game you recommended until tonight. See you then, sis…”

I listened to the sound of the footsteps walking away from my room with an ounce of guilt. It wasn't really my style to just give her the silent treatment like this. My reasons for avoiding my sister weren't even her fault – in fact, they had nothing to do with her at all. The only connection they had was that all of my anger, acrimony, and outright hatred was currently directed at her mother…

In other words, my aunt. Suguha and I weren't really siblings, but I still thought of her as one because we were very close growing up. Her mother, on the other hand, could barely hide her resentment of me for most of my life, and I'd picked up on it before I was even toilet trained. By this point, I was pretty sure it was because I reminded her of her sister – my real mom – whom I knew was my grandfather's favorite child. A fact which I knew because the old geezer never shut up about it or how I was the spitting image of my mom.

And due to a string of events at school over the past year, we were having a difference of opinions over our living arrangements. I wanted to move somewhere else, to basically run away from some people I'd accidentally alienated, I did admit, and well… she didn't like that idea. In all fairness, she had the stronger argument on her side, but the way she was handling the problem didn't exactly scream parental figure of the year.

“I already bailed your sorry ass out of one school system, kid. I'm not doing it again for a reason that isn't even half as valid like this.”

My current personal pick for the next cover model of Punchable Face Magazine actually said that right to my face just the night before. Was I supposed to thank her for doing what any sensible parent would have done in light of the circumstances? Even right after she blatantly told me my current problems weren't important enough to warrant similar actions?

"Go to hell, Midori," I muttered under my breath, making sure to be quiet in case my sister was still in the house.

What a joke. That jealous hussy just wanted to watch me suffer in a way that my real mom, who was dynamic, outgoing and didn't struggle to be social or keep her friends, never did. The only thing I seemed to inherit from my mother was her physique, from the well developed figure to the incredibly short height. My personality, intelligence and thought patterns? They basically came straight from my dad with no alterations, as much as I hated it most of the time.

This was why I didn't want to talk to Suguha at the moment. I couldn't let it slip that I was fighting with her mom. Or even worse, let it slip that her mom was my aunt, and that we were actually cousins, which I had tactfully kept hidden from her for the past five years. So until my emotions cooled down a little, I had decided to hold off on speaking with my sister as much as possible.

BZZ-BZZ

This noise, coupled with a subtle shaking feeling coming from the inside pocket of my dark gray denim jacket, interrupted my thoughts to notify me that I'd received an email. A single buzz would have been a text, and three of them would have been an app notification, but the presence of only two, along with the current time, told me exactly what to expect.

Rather than get out my phone, I swung my computer chair around to face my desk, where three large, high-resolution monitors, both blackened due to inactivity, stood next to each other in a way that made them look like the three obtusely angled sides of a trapezoid in a geometry problem. Under the desk, there was another surface, attached to the one above it with a sliding mechanism. It was currently rolled under the desk, hiding what I kept there.

I slid it out, and a keyboard and computer mouse appeared over my bare frightfully pale legs, still kept slender yet toned from my kendo days and the regular indoor weight training routine I’d kept even after I quit the sport. Since I almost never went outside except to go home, to school, or to certain stores, my skin looked significantly closer to that of a white American than that of a Japanese girl. In fact, my own family members all had considerably darker skin than I did, and they weren't even super huge on outdoor exercise or outdoor activity in general.

When boys around me at school thought I couldn't hear, many of them described it as a charm point… and coupled with the other such points they'd discuss, I usually had to fight back a shudder of revulsion and the urge to slap them across the face. Knowing my bizarrely and disproportionately high physical strength, I could very possibly snap their necks by accident if I actually went through with a slap like that.

Shaking my head to clear it of such morbid thoughts, I shifted the mouse, and all three monitors lit up, showing three different screens. The cursor moved to the one on the far right, which showed my work email inbox. It had just updated to show the new mail I'd received. The sender was just the person I'd been expecting to hear from around this point. I clicked on it, and it popped up in a little miniature window on the side of the screen.

Sender: Kayaba-Sensei

Subject: A Quick Notification

I trust that your copy of EoS came safely in the mail. I wanted to inform you that upon successfully logging in for the first time, your account will be that of a normal player. Your developer status has been suspended to make it fair on the other players.

That was all it said. I'd been corresponding with him since shortly before summer vacation, and to date, he'd never sent a message longer than a mid-sized paragraph. He was very brief and to the point, always conveying everything he needed to and nothing more.

The honorific I used to refer to him, sensei, was purely sarcastic. He was hands down the smartest person I'd ever met, but as much as I'd tried to learn from him about his craft, the man had never taught me a damn thing I didn't already know. Sometimes I got the distinct impression that he avoided telling me anything new just to screw with me, but he was more the serious type, so it didn't really add up. And besides, though he never directly taught me anything, he sure didn’t keep me from learning things on his own, like the programming language he literally invented from scratch for the game he’d just called EoS.

Said game, the acronym of which stood for Era of Survival, was a little project he'd been working on for quite some time. It was an MMORPG, and the first of its kind on the particular hardware it used. Back around the time summer vacation was about to start, Kayaba scouted me as a beta tester.

He found me through my blog, where I built and sold custom high end computers, often with modified operating systems to fit the recipient, and had quite the reputation for being one of the best and most reasonably priced in my field throughout all of Japan. I also did computer repairs and upgrades, reviewed new parts shortly after they came out, and gave advice to people looking to build one themselves, which only added to my popularity.

Still, my reputation aside, it never really added up how he managed to find me. After all, I was a computer nerd, albeit a multifaceted and successful one, and he was a revolutionary quantum physicist who happened to have an interest in the gaming industry for reasons I never understood. Realistically speaking, our paths shouldn't have normally crossed. Yet he contacted me through my blog's dedicated email, asking to meet up, and after asking me a few really odd questions, he offered to let me take the last slot of EoS' closed beta, which would take place over summer vacation.

As was probably obvious, I accepted, and he gave me a developer account to allow me to see all of the under-the-hood functions of the game. I also had a direct contact line to the programming staff in case I noticed anything that needed adjusting, which I had admittedly used a few times to iron out some particularly big problems I’d found.

To be perfectly honest, I was glad that he had decided to take my developer account away. Considering I still vividly remembered everything I'd learned from it, suspending it wouldn't exactly remove my unfair advantage from a knowledge standpoint, but at the very least, I'd have an equal standing with the rest of the players. I didn't like being special in ways I could avoid it, so having a developer account had always bugged me during the test period.

Deciding that by this point, there was no way that my sister was still in the house, I clicked the reply button, entered a new subject header, and began typing out my response. I kept it short and to the point, as in tone with that of the message he sent to me as I could muster.

Subject: Too late for fairness

Considering my memory is eidetic, the damage has kind of been done in terms of giving me an unfair advantage. But I'm still grateful for the gesture, since I'd like to appear as normal as possible, and having a purple "Dev" next to my player name wouldn't exactly make that easy.

The game got here just fine, by the way. You did send it first class, after all. I've already got the cartridge in my Nerve Gear, which I set up for use again yesterday, so at this point, I'm just waiting for the hour to turn so I can play.

After finishing, I hit send, and the message composition window disappeared. It occurred to me that most people in my shoes probably would have been total kiss-asses. However, it never really occurred to me to treat him as someone special, even if he most certainly was such. Because at the end of the day, whatever his reasoning was, he was the one who sought me out to play his game, not the other way around. So at the very least, this meant he held me in some regard from the start. I got his attention by doing what I normally did, so I never saw any reason to change my behavior.

Finished with my correspondence for the moment, my eyes turned to the web page open on my far left monitor. It was a live countdown to EoS’ launch time, down to the thousandth of a second. It was telling me I had about six minutes to kill before the server went online – enough time to take care of the remaining preparations.

First on the list, I shifted my gaze to the monitor in the middle, which had my blog’s front page loaded. I wanted to let my followers know I’d be playing the game all day, and therefore that I wouldn’t receive their emails until nighttime. I moved my mouse over to the text box which said “New Blog Entry Here,” then clicked on it and immediately began to type.

Just a heads up to all followers and customers, both current and potential: I’ll be playing Era of Survival all day since it launches today, so all emails you send will be responded to after I log off late tonight. Thanks for your patience and understanding! And to those of you whom I convinced to get one of the hundred thousand first release EoS copies: I’ll see you in the game! I’ll be going by the same name I do on this blog for easy identification. And just a heads up: if even a single one of you fuckers steals my username’s normal spelling, you will be entitled to one brutal in game death a day, courtesy of yours truly! See you all online!

My message to my followers complete, I quickly hit send and swiveled the chair around to face my room, takins survey of the task that lay before me. The floor wouldn't exactly count as spotless, but it was very well organized. Anything that took up space on the floor was properly packaged or put away – nothing was just lying around messily.

However, when my eyes moved about a meter up, I found a completely different picture before me. In the center of the bedroom, I had three card tables set up. Not a single one of them had any spot with even ten centimeters of free space in any direction. Almost all of the surface area was taken up by ongoing projects – at least five half built computers stood out like mountainous islands among everything else strewn about the tables, each surrounded by an amalgam of parts that still needed to be physically installed.

I probably didn't have time to finish any of them or make any room, so I turned to the right, coming face to face with my bed, the entrance to my room, and my dark violet walls that I got painted shortly after moving in. I had wanted to paint them black or dark gray, but my aunt vetoed both of those, telling me that having a room those colors would only make my depression worse, which she said would defeat the whole purpose of moving to a new house. So I settled for a very deep purple, since I'd been told all my life that my anomalous bluish gray eyes looked violet in the right lighting.

My bedroom door was a bit atypical for a Japanese household, but not incredibly rare – rather than having a sliding door, I had a European-styled wooden door, with a bronze-colored metal knob that could lock from the inside. This was an absolute necessity from my standpoint, and it was honestly the reason we chose this house specifically – its doors locked and if they were locked, you couldn't just force them open.

My queen-sized bed had a memory foam mattress that I didn't have when we bought the house. Instead, I bought it a few months later, as the first purchase I made in full with my own earnings from the computer business I'd started. However, at this point, one could not see the mattress directly, because of the presence of plain navy blue sheets, leopard skin-patterned blankets that I'd bought on a whim, and three fully built laptops that were currently situated on the bed. The two at the foot, which I kept there with no worries since my feet didn't even reach that far down even when I stretched out, were ones I'd built for the purpose of selling that I still needed to modify the operating systems of.

The third laptop, currently charging on my extremely fluffy pillow, was what I currently used for running my blog from the bed when I didn’t want to get up, making purchases, and the occasional gaming session in bed. This was what needed to move – in order to play the game that was about to go online, I'd need to lie down in bed and make use of the pillow currently occupied by my portable computer.

I stood up, walking over to my bed and grabbing my laptop with both hands. Setting it on the floor for the moment, I then turned to my large, whitish, oak wood nightstand, my eyes zeroing in on one particular device sitting next to the lamp. It was a streamlined helmet colored a dark blue, with an emerald green visor in front to cover one's eyes and a long, blue cord stretching out of the back end, the color of which matched the helmet. That cord was already plugged into the wall – I'd set it up the night before.

I grabbed the helmet and set it on my pillow, the pillowcase of which matched the leopard print of my blanket. I made sure to be as careful as humanly possible when setting it down and moving the cord – if I somehow accidentally damaged it at this stage, I wouldn't be able to play EoS for days, possibly weeks. These things were sold out in stores all across the nation.

After making sure everything was perfectly fine, I grabbed my laptop from the floor and set it in the spot on my nightstand where the helmet had once been, with notably less care than I'd used just before. That damn computer was durable as hell, so I didn't need to worry about it nearly as much.

I cast another glance to the live countdown. Three minutes left before I could start playing. As much as I hated adding to the stereotype, I had to admit that the passage of time seemed excruciatingly slow now that I was paying close attention to it. I didn't want to be even a second late in logging in to make sure I got to use my username instead of some random troll, so I couldn't really leave my room, and there was nothing left to do inside it that wouldn't take more time than I had.

With nothing left to do, I sat down on my bed, deciding to just get ready a few minutes early. I swung my bare legs onto the bed, absently noting that I'd gone the entire day so far without changing or putting on any clothes aside from my jacket, which was more of a comfort than anything else. I'd just kept wearing what I'd slept in, like usual – this time, a dark gray shirt and a set of black lace underwear that I'd received from an asshole family member as my fourteenth birthday present the month before. While the message of “get laid” that such a gift sent was irredeemably insensitive and somewhat cruel to me, I'd taken to wearing them anyway, because no matter how much I hated that idiot for giving them to me, they were certainly very comfortable, and they were also my favorite color.

The fact that they were comfy was weird in and of itself, because they were lace, and therefore not supposed to be as comfortable as what I normally wore. I'd done a little researching shortly after receiving them and I'd found that the brand my family member had chosen was actually really high end, and that it typically made underwear with both fashion and comfort in mind.

Knowing I'd probably just killed another thirty seconds, I made a grab for the helmet on my pillow. Turning it a little as it rose through the air, I gently slid it on my head, then shifted around a little on the bed before inevitably lying down. I didn't even bother getting under the covers – though winter was quickly approaching, I still didn't feel cold. Everyone in my family seemed to be remarkably temperature insensitive, to the point that changes in temperature that weren't at least five degrees would go completely unnoticed unless we constantly monitored the thermostat.

As I lay there waiting, my eyes wandered around the visor of the helmet I wore. There were two displays, both very small, showing across the whole thing. Those displays would not be visible at all unless one was wearing the helmet – they appeared on the visor using the same technology that EoS ran on. It directly displayed the images to one's brain as pre-interpreted visual data, so there was no need for the displays to actually be on the visor.

On the far right, in the upper corner, there was a battery icon. Mine indicated that it was both fully charged and plugged in, the latter detail being shown by a lightning bolt in the middle of the battery. Which made sense, considering it had been charging all night, and even before that, I hadn't used the thing since EoS’ beta, where I always kept it fully charged and ready for action.

The other display, situated in the upper right corner, told the current time in text about the size of the battery icon. It only had hours and minutes, no seconds, and it was a twenty-four hour clock, rather than a twelve hour one. As I looked at it, the readout said 12:59. All this super slow-paced thinking had worked marvelously for killing time. Although how I actually managed the feat of slowing down my normally light speed thought processes was a bit of a mystery. I knew I could do it on command, but I'd never figured out how it worked.

I had less than a minute to go. This was the most excited I'd felt in months – back in the beta, I'd been positively addicted to EoS, and I'd spent more time playing it than I did anything else, to the point that I'd forgone meals and sleep regularly to keep going. Even though I wouldn't be able to put the same amount of time into it now, during the school year and with my computer business not on hold, I still planned to play as much as possible for someone with my schedule.

At long last, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, the clock turned to 13:00. Filled with joy and anticipation, as soon as the numbers on the readout changed, I uttered a single phrase, just two English words. The words that, unbeknownst to me, would be the catalyst of an event that would change my life forever.

“Link start!”


Well, what do you think? Personally I'm of the thought that for an installment that was mostly written seven months ago, it holds up with my current stuff pretty decently. But you guys are the judge of that, not me! Be sure to let me know how I did. If you're one of the people who has also read the original version of this chapter over on FFN (I'm looking at you, Shirou), be sure to tell me if you think the changes to this version made it better or worse, too!

I'm kind of on the fence about whether I want to continue using the story this first chapter came from as a base for the next chapter as well. See, I'd have to rework a lot more of the next chapter in order to make it work correctly, because the original version was set in a death game version of Gun Gale Online, and as such was futuristic rather than old-fashioned. It'd take almost as much effort to rework it as it would to simply write the next chapter from scratch... but if I went with using the existing chapter as a base, you'd get to see scenes from Klein's perspective. What do you think I should do?

One way or another, I'll see you next time!

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Aaaaaaaaaand chapter two completed! Or well, modified, technically. This chapter also came from the same story the first one came from, though it has been altered to fit its new setting. This will be the last chapter I can release this quickly, by the way - I'll have to write out the rest from scratch, so they'll take a while longer than these first two did. Although it's worth noting that the first scene was written out from scratch because I wanted to have a logon scene.

Anyway, that's about it from me. Read on!


Era of Survival: Rise of the Empress

Chapter Two: New Friend

The moment I uttered the hardware’s activation phrase aloud, all noise faded away into nothing and my vision went completely dark. In the next moment, my vision became a sterile white, and in the distance in front of me I could see a circular gathering little dots, each of which was one color of the rainbow. They got closer by the second until suddenly, I was passing through them and found that the dots were actually long lines of color.

As the lines rapidly passed by all around my field of vision, I felt a rushing sensation, as if I were standing atop a car travelling at highway speeds and the wind was fiercely blowing past my body. Then, suddenly, the sensation stopped just as the last of the lines went out of sight, and I saw two blue and violet high tech looking circular icons rapidly approaching.

The one on the left reached me first, seeming to go all the way right up to my left eye, and I noticed the word “Touch” emblazoned in a white text box in the middle of its blue center. Immediately afterwards, the other icon reached the spot right in front of my right eye, the word “Sight” popping up in its own center text box. Then, just as soon as they appeared, they retreated to a spot a few meters away on my right side, lining up from the top as their textboxes both displayed the word “Okay.”

Three more icons rapidly approached me and filled my entire field of vision for a few moments, their text boxes displaying the words “Hearing,” “Taste” and Smell” for a few moments before the words all changed to “Okay” and the icons joined the first two in the distance of the right side of my field of vision. As soon as they all stopped moving, all five icons turned a vibrant green before quickly scrolling out of my sight, two moving to the right and three to the left.

Next, a new text box appeared towards the left and displayed the English phrase “Language Select.” A second box appeared with an arrow telling me that I could will a dropdown menu to appear if I wished, but since the pre-selected language was already Japanese, I didn’t bother. I willed it to confirm, and the boxes disappeared, quickly getting replaced by a login screen asking for my account name and password.

I entered them in almost instantaneously, using my mind’s lightning quick thought speed to my full advantage. As soon as I willed it to confirm, the login screen faded, and another window took its place. The window asked me a single question, showed me what it was referring to, and then gave the options of yes or no.

Character Creation

Beta test data still available. Would you like to use it?

Kiriko (M)

YES     NO

I’d made it in time to keep my username, yes! I willed the answer yes as quickly as my brain would allow, and the window disappeared, my entire field of vision going gray. A welcoming message appeared before me in large, black letters, reading “Welcome to Era of Survival!” it quickly began to come closer and closer, until the words passed right through me, and more lines of various shades of blue began rapidly passing me by immediately afterwards. As they passed by all around me, my vision became brighter and brighter until it went completely white.

And then, the bright white color dispersed into glowing polygonal shards that flew into the air above me, leaving me looking up at what appeared to be a massive bluish ceiling of sorts that seemed to stretch on forever. My gaze immediately darted back down, took in my surroundings, and made a snap assessment.

Floor one, looks like. Then I’ll need to go—

The moment my feet landed on the ground as my spawn completed, I broke into a run for exactly where I’d need to go to get myself geared up to start my own grand adventure. If I wanted to make sure the shops still had stock of everything I’d need, I had no time to waste enjoying the scenery.

If all went according to plan, I’d be out of town grinding in less than fifteen minutes.


Upon finally logging onto Era of Survival for the first time, after spending a full ten minutes carefully designing my avatar and waiting on the server to go up, the first thing that caught my eye was a person.

Yeah, that's right. Instead of staring in awe of the entire virtual world around me like I'd expected to, my eyes zeroed in on one specific person on autopilot the moment the fantasy world materialized around me. I noticed the guy over everyone and everything else because, unlike the droves of people spawning all around us, he quite literally hit the ground running, making a beeline for somewhere that only he knew.

It hit me in a flash. This guy definitely knew exactly where he was going, in spite of the fact that this was day one, minute one of the official service of EoS. If he already knew this place, that could only mean one thing.

That guy's a beta-tester!

As soon as my mind made the connection, I bolted after him, running as hard as I could to keep up. I'd made my avatar taller than he did his, so my strides were longer, but he had the advantage of familiarity on his side. If I slowed down for even a moment, I'd lose him in the ever-growing crowd, or around a corner or something.

We made it to the edge of the city's plaza from somewhere near the center after a full minute of running. I hadn't managed to catch up by much, so he still hadn't noticed me tailing him. If it weren't for all the people showing up, I would have been a lot closer, possibly enough to call out to him. But they kept spawning in flashes of theatrical blue light right in front of me, damn it!

Of course, the beta player dealt with this problem, too. But if one appeared right in front of him, he'd just dart to the side with a swift twirl and keep moving forward by slamming and pivoting his feet in a way that betrayed many long hours of training and experience. I had to admit, it was impressive how he never managed to slow down or run into anyone the whole time, but it only made things harder for me.

Luckily, once we left the center of town for a wide, cobblestone paved city street, the number of people popping up like flowers in spring dropped to zero. It seemed like all the new players spawned in the plaza, no matter what. I didn't mind at all, though – less people meant less obstacles to slow me down, and I needed every advantage I could get!

Suddenly, he slowed down, then darted into an alleyway to the left. It took me a full five seconds to get to the corner, and by the time I did, worried that I'd already lost him, I barely even slowed down as I turned and dashed into the alley—

Only for something small and blunt to hit me right in the nose, forcing me backwards from a full sprint until I fell flat on my ass. My eyes closed tightly as the pain hit me like a tidal wave, and for a moment I wondered just what the hell the developers were thinking when they incorporated pain into a video game. Even if it wasn't as bad as it would have been in real life, that still hurt, damn it!

I looked up in search of the source, preparing to either shout or punch an inanimate object for hurting me. However, what I found made me feel significantly less, shall we say… primed for battle.

"You know, if you're going to bother stalking someone relentlessly," the male said in a calm, cool and collected voice, the fist he'd used to stop me in my tracks still held out in front of him. "You could at least try to be a little stealthy about it, Mohawk. There are literally reflective surfaces like mirrors all over the damn city, did you seriously expect me not to notice someone with an attention whore hairstyle like you right away?"

Attention whore?! I just picked it because designing my avatar was taking too long, damn it!

What a misunderstanding! This did not look good. I needed to come up with something to diffuse the tension and get rid of this guy’s combat ready attitude… I’d heard horror stories about how ruthless the beta players could get when pissed. "T-that wasn't really my intention… you were running so fast… and I wanted to talk to you after I'd caught up to you, not before."

His face, which had been frozen into an icy glare up to that point, softened into one of skepticism. That was better than before, at least. Skepticism was a far cry from the outright contempt I'd seen just a few seconds ago. Good, we were making progress here.

"Okay, let's assume I believe you," he replied with the same tone as before, if maybe a tiny bit less… sharp, I guess? His hand fell loosely to his side as his fingers unclenched. "What do you want from me? Why go to such lengths to chase me down?"

I rubbed my still-aching nose with my hand as I slowly rose to my feet. At this point, I noticed that there was a clear height difference between the two of us. My avatar's height was about average for what you'd expect a Japanese teenage guy, which was the age I was aiming for in design. Maybe a smidge taller. But this dude was at least a head shorter than me – he came right up to the base of my neck.

I looked down at him and spoke with a shrug of my shoulders. "You didn't take any time to admire the scenery of the world's first VRMMO. You just booked it the moment your feet hit the ground after you spawned, and you seemed to know where you were going. I figured you had to be one of the beta testers, so I decided to try and get some pointers on how to play the game."

For a few fleeting moments, I saw an expression of genuine internal conflict dance across his sort of girlish-looking face. The longer it went on, the more I worried he was about to turn me down. But then, right as I was about to apologize and leave, he smiled uneasily, running a hand through his sort of long, black bangs that seemed to strategically part in a way that kept them from getting in his eyes.

"All right, you win," he told me, shrugging his shoulders as his hair fell back into place. "I'll give you Kiriko's personal tutorial. Full disclosure: it's kind of a sink or swim type of tutoring."

The name he dropped there was one that I immediately recognized, but I dismissed the possibility of this being the same person almost right away. The Kiriko I was thinking of was a popular blogger and high-end computer builder who also did viral reviews of the Nerve Gear and this game's beta that remained the most popular ones to date. They could be the same person, but… well, the blogger was a girl. So if this guy were actually that Kiriko, then it would mean she cross-played. And doing that in a game where your avatar actually had private parts and simulated bathroom needs like this one would be… weird, to say the least.

"You know, you could show a little emotion instead of just spacing out," he said, waving a hand in front of my face.

The gesture snapped me back to virtual reality, and I rubbed the back of my neck with my hand as a nervous smile came to my lips. "Sorry… your name just reminded me of someone. Probably just a coincidence, though. Anyway, thanks a million! My name's Klein, by the way."

Kiriko nodded, turning around and beginning to walk off. "Gotcha. Introductions are over, so let's get going. First stop: the equipment shops. You can choose whatever you want to start out with, but I can only teach you how to activate the skills of one-handed weapons since those are all I have experience with."


"Oh, come the hell on!" I shouted at the top of my lungs as the last of the arrows I’d bought went sailing right past my target and into the ground two meters beyond it. The impact snapped it in half, and my last piece of ammunition quickly shattered into blue polygonal fragments just like all the others before it.

The thing I wasted all my arrows on was some giant wolf-looking thing with black fur. Kiriko called them «Predator Eaters» when we encountered them, which made sense, because they looked big enough to tear a real life wolf to shreds with little effort.

They were big and frightening enough to be genuinely scary, even at the seven meter distance I currently had on this one, at least from what the distance check function said when I took aim. I could feel my body getting amped up – hell, I could even hear and feel my heart pounding, even though it was just a game and my body in here wasn’t even real! The thing just looked too… realistic, and it freaked me out a ton.

Just before I grabbed for another clip to try again, something unexpected happened. I heard a loud noise from my right, and a red spot briefly appeared over the right eye of my target as something small crashed right into it, the wound appearing to leak small red polygons into the air as if bleeding. The whole body began to turn into a bright red, glassy color to match the original spot, and suddenly became more angularly shaped than before. Finally, one second after the sound rang through my ears, the enemy I'd wasted all my arrows on shattered into red, orange and yellow fragments that scattered into the light breeze.

I looked over to my teacher for the day, the beta player with a girl's name who'd greeted me by punching me in the face for following him. His black jacketed left arm was stretched out in front of him, as if he’d just thrown something with it. He seemed unnaturally calm, almost as if what he'd done was absolutely nothing at all to him.

"Sorry I had to step in for you, but that was just getting sad," he remarked, lowering his arm until it hung limply at his side. He turned to face me with a no-nonsense face, and I knew I was in for it. "That was the weakest and slowest moving monster in the whole floor. One hit to an eye from a fucking rock or any given sword skill hitting it anywhere will kill it in one shot, and you won't even aggro the thing until you actually hit it. It may look big and tough, but it's as tame as they get."

I nodded my head, flopping into the grassy ground beneath me in frustration. "I know, I know… you said almost all of that when we found it. It's just… it looks scary as hell, okay? And I can't line up my shots properly with that circle thing, so they all miss!"

For a brief moment, a flash of recognition flared up in Kiriko's eyes, and he nodded his head. "Those are both the same problem. That circle that appears in your vision and tells you where you'll hit a second after you draw the arrow back on the bowstring – it's called the «Projectile Circle» – it fluctuates and moves according to your emotional state and heartrate."

"What do you mean?" I asked, feeling kind of eager now that he seemed to be explaining things.

"For example… if you're perfectly calm and your heart is at a normal pace, then it will be smaller, fluctuate through its size range slower, and move around according to where you're pointing your arrow or other projectile. Although in the case of magic it just automatically moves to target the enemy you're fighting," he explained, bending over and retrieving two more pebbles from the ground and turning to the right.

I looked over to where he seemed to be setting his sights. Way off in the distance – so far, I could barely even see them in any detail – were two more Predator Eaters. We had to be at least twenty meters away from them. The distance was great enough to make me expect him to completely miss his throws.

But he didn't seem to be deterred by this range in the slightest. "Using a projectile type attack with that state of mind and basic aiming…"

Bam! … Bam!

Two for two. He threw a pebble at each of the enemies in the group and hit them both on what must have been their eyes, making each of them shatter into fragments like the one he'd killed for me. The first hit on the beast’s right eye, from what I could tell when squinting, and the second was on the left, hitting it from the side. What made this stand out even more was the short amount of time between his throws – he'd readjusted his trajectory and attacked a second time at precisely when the first one exploded into an array of bright color, meaning he'd only taken a single second to aim and fire at his new target. And the only way that was possible is by using each of his hands, one per throw, and not even relying on the Projectile circle for the second strike. Both pebbles traced bright white lines in the air as they flew.

His arms lowered, and he turned back to me once again. "… You can effectively quadruple your effective accuracy range as compared to if you're in a state of emotional chaos and your heart is pounding. My maximum range for hitting targets effectively with rocks is about thirty meters, and double that for bows. Although I will admit, in by the time I get to my limit, I can't hit precise spots on a target smaller than fifteen centimeters with a hundred percent reliability."

I just gaped. I hadn't seen that coming at all. Even if what he was saying was all true… something told me that he was at the head of the learning curve, even for beta players. Hitting two small targets from at least twenty meters away with precise accuracy and such quick aiming speed from one target to the next… it struck me as way more than what a normal player would be capable of.

"You're amazing!" I shouted, overcome with astonishment. "How did you get to be that good? What's your secret?!"

He used his free right hand to rub the back of his neck as he gave what seemed like a forced smile. "I had… a really good training partner, to say the least. One that helped me weed out everything that didn't work until I had only the strongest tactics and moves at my disposal. But we're not here to talk about me. Now it's your turn. Since you’re out of arrows, find a rock."

He pointed over to a spot to our left, a notable distance away, where another Predator Eater was slowly prowling about in a large, meandering circle. At that point, I noticed that in the center of his walking pattern, there was a mid-sized hole surrounded by bare earth, unlike the grassy terrain of most of the area, as if something had burrowed a tunnel into the ground there ages ago. It almost seemed like the enemy was circling the hole, waiting for something to come out.

"Take that one out in one shot with a calm state of mind. Once we kill all the Predator Eaters in this «Hunting Fields» area, more lucrative mobs will start spawning from those burrows for a while. One of their less grind intensive rare drops is a nice sword that both of us could put to good use," Kiriko explained in his factual, sort of overly detailed way that I was quickly growing used to.

Calm state of mind…

I repeated this over and over in my head like a mantra as I slowly picked up a pebble from the ground around my feet, then reared my arm back as if to throw it at the monster my teacher told me to kill. As the virtual muscles in my arm tightened up like a coiled spring, the distance check function that he'd made me turn on before we left town displayed a number on the top-center of my field of vision: ten meters.

As my focus returned to my massive, wolf-like target, I felt my heartrate begin to increase. I repeated the mantra with greater fervor, to no avail – it didn't help me keep calm at all. Just as I was about to give up, Kiriko's voice called out from beside me.

"If it helps, try to laser focus in on the body part you want to hit until you lose sight of the enemy as a whole," he advised, apparently perceptive enough to notice my problem. "Not only will that make it easier to calm down and stay that way, it also promotes good aiming habits for non-humanoid opponents."

I nodded silently, his advice giving me the hope I needed to keep trying. I did my best to stop looking at the whole Predator Eater currently facing me from twenty-some meters away, instead looking at the right eye just above the long, toothy snout. From this distance, it was hard to make out exact details, but not impossible.

Just like he said, my heartrate began to go back to normal, and I felt less afraid overall. I reared my arm back as far as it would go, and the Projectile Circle appeared in my vision a moment later – it seemed completely different from the one I saw nonstop when I wasted all my arrows. This one looked less erratic, and though it still got bigger and smaller over the course of a couple seconds, it didn't get half as big, and it seemed to be going in slow motion compared to before.

I adjusted my aim a bit – my original one had been away from my target area by a few degrees – and the Projectile Circle aligned itself with my movements, precisely and without any unpredictable leaps halfway across my field of vision like before. If it was like this… then I could do it! I released the tension in my arm, chucking that son of a bitch as hard as I could, and—

Pop!

My throw hit the oversized wolf right on the nose. It was a few degrees off, but it was still a good, solid hit, as the fact that the beast’s head snapping right over to me proved. Part of me felt elated that I'd hit it on the first try, but another part of me kind of felt bad that I missed my mark. However, a much larger part of me than both of those found myself terrified. Why, you ask?

Because right after I hit it, the massive thing started running right for me! It was closing in faster than I’d ever seen a dog run, and I couldn’t even get my fucking legs to move out of the way!

"Good going," my teacher praised calmly and without the sarcasm I deserved as he stepped in front of me and drew his starting sword from its scabbard at his waist with his left hand. "If you can do it like that every time, then we shouldn't need to go back to town for arrows— you look terrified. What's up?"

"Are you shitting me?" I shouted, pointing my finger past him aggressively. "I missed and now the fucker’s comin’ right for us!"

Kiriko merely shrugged his shoulders, turning back to the enemy rapidly approaching us and holding his sword in some sort of battle stance, bending his body forward and drawing his weapon back. Before I could frantically ask him what the hell kind of dumb fighting pose it was, he suddenly leapt forward and thrust his sword out in front of him.

Shiiiiiiink!

By the time I caught up with his body with my eyes, it had stopped several meters past where the enemy had been just a second before. But the Predator Eater itself had vanished, with only red and orange polygonal shards occupying the space where it had been stopped. I had no idea what the fuck just happened, but somehow, my teenage teacher had definitely killed it.

He spoke in a calm, confident voice as he slid his sword back into its scabbard. "Relax, will ya? That kinda shit is what I’m here for. By the way, what I just did was a sword skill. I'll be teaching you those once we get you a new weapon."

I looked over at him and rubbed my neck guiltily. "You saved my ass. Thanks. But… you wouldn’t have needed to if I’d hit the right spot."

His eyes flashed in understanding, but then he held up his right index finger as if trying to point something out as he closed the distance between us in a light jog. "That wasn't you. You were probably too focused to notice, but it moved its head up a little right as you threw the rock. If it hadn't done that, you would have hit it right in its left eye."

The unsatisfied feelings that had been running around inside me vanished without a trace as I heard this. I actually did it completely right on the first try! Elation surged up at my newfound sense of accomplishment.

"Great, so I didn't screw up!" I exclaimed, holding out my hand in the air in front of my teacher. He held his out in turn, and we slapped them together in a high five with enough force to make my hand sting a little. "Let's keep going and get that sword you talked about!"

Kiriko's lips curled up into a small but genuine smile as he nodded along. "That's the spirit. Let's split up and take out all the Predator Eaters as quickly as possible so we can have some new rare drop weapons before sunset. If you can keep doing what you just did, you should have no problems on your own. And since we're in a party, we'll both get EXP and col from every kill, so it's more efficient to fight separately."

"You got it! I'll take the north and west sections of the area, and you take the south and east sections," I replied with an enthusiastic nod. My teacher and, now, partner, seemed a bit taken aback by my sudden command, but just before I walked it back, he nodded.

"Sounds good. Let's get to it!"

With our combined yet spread out efforts, we killed all the Predator Eaters in the Hunting Fields area in just under half an hour. We both got the rare drop one-handed straight swords from the smaller but higher leveled coyote mobs that spawned from the burrows and even got to test them out and practice sword skills with 'em well before the sun began to set in the sky. Near the end of our coyote hunting, I even got a super rare drop curved sword that was even better than the straight sword I had been using to get it!

Thinking back, this was probably the time in the game where I felt the most unrestrained joy. But who could blame me? At the time, the reality I believed in – that this was just a really fun, immersive survival game to blow my weekends and days off on – hadn't been shattered yet.


Yeah, I made Klein try archery first. This is because the original scene had him shooting a gun, and I was too lazy to edit that into swinging a weapon because that would require changing the structure of the scene.

Trivia: the sword skill Kiriko used was Rage Spike, a dash type sword skill. It was used twice in the anime, both by Kirito - once at the end of episode one and once to hit Heathcliff and trigger the immortal object flag in episode thirteen.

Anyway, there's gonna be a bit more stuff before the tutorial. All of that, along with said tutorial, will be written from scratch, with some of it using the novel volume one as a base. Starting next chapter, we'll be back to Kiriko's point of view. BTW, the name Kiriko is a mashup of her last name, Kirigaya, and her first name, Kimiko, which I've used as her IRL name for literal years over on FFN. I just point that out to say that I did it first, and based on the conversations in my other SAO fic's thread, it's likely that Darksyn copied me, not the other way around. Which is fine as far as I'm concerned - I just don't want anyone thinking the name was his idea because I don't like it when other people are given credit for my ideas.

Anyway, I think I need to shower and sleep, so I'll be going now. See you next chapter!

Edited by writerforce6 (see edit history)
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1 hour ago, Unbeknownst said:

I was just wondering why Kiriko was male, then the plot occurred to me and I'm berating myself for making too many assumptions too fast. XD

Problems with my thought process...

Also, NEW CHAPTER! YAY!

Kiriko's avatar is a male. She cross played (a term I completely made up in a story years ago to describe people who play video games as the opposite gender). She did it because she didn't want to deal with the constant drumbeat of harassment that comes with being a woman active on the internet. Turns out in my story's 2022, that is still very much a problem in society.

Edited by writerforce6 (see edit history)
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17 hours ago, writerforce6 said:

Kiriko's avatar is a male. She cross played (a term I completely made up in a story years ago to describe people who play video games as the opposite gender). She did it because she didn't want to deal with the constant drumbeat of harassment that comes with being a woman active on the internet. Turns out in my story's 2022, that is still very much a problem in society.

Cross-playing is actually a real term, though it generally refers to people who cosplay as a character of the other gender. It still works well for gaming, however!

 

And yes, I did take Kiriko's name as a bit of inspiration from @writerforce6 , full credit to 'em for coming up with it.

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Random tidbit but I thought in terms of video games, crossplay is playing across platforms (e.g. PC w/ Xbox) on multiplayer games. :)

Anyways, I love how detailed you did everything in the tutorial, making teaching Klein very interesting (I like how he was observant about her probably not being, we'll, her). I wonder what will happen for the big reveal? :D

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On 6/19/2017 at 6:52 AM, ShowOffX said:

Random tidbit but I thought in terms of video games, crossplay is playing across platforms (e.g. PC w/ Xbox) on multiplayer games. :)

Anyways, I love how detailed you did everything in the tutorial, making teaching Klein very interesting (I like how he was observant about her probably not being, we'll, her). I wonder what will happen for the big reveal? :D

It's that too, but back when I invented my own definition of the term I did not own a PS4, so I had no idea there was an existing definition for it already.

I dunno if I'd call that the tutorial, given that the official launch tutorial will be hosted by Kayaba Akihiko... but for the record, in my story Klein is just observant in general. And perceptive, for that matter. Essentially, he has a very high social intelligence. Kiriko, on the other hand, has a below average social intelligence - she's extremely perceptive and therefore very good at reading people, but she has no idea what to do with that information once she receives it and that combined with her blunt, mercilessly honest nature gets her a lot of enemies really easily. In this AU, she's only ever had five friends in her entire life, and she had a falling out with all of them shortly before the EoS closed beta. By the way, the key to figuring out who those friends actually are before I reveal it lies in how many there are in the group: five.

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Hmmmm....

Considers the following in this order: MAY CONTAIN POSSIBLE SPOILERS... YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

... Was I even close to being right? XD

 

1. The Moonlit Black Cats (Keita, Sachi, Tetsuo, Sasamaru, and Ducker)

2. The Sleeping Knights surviving members (Siune, Jun, Tecchi, Talken, Nori)

3. The Laughing Coffin known members (PoH, XaXa, Johnny Black, Lux, Kuradeel)

Edited by Unbeknownst
Broken spoiler box. :/ (see edit history)
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54 minutes ago, Unbeknownst said:

Hmmmm....

Considers the following in this order: MAY CONTAIN POSSIBLE SPOILERS... YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

... Was I even close to being right? XD

  Hide contents

1. The Moonlit Black Cats (Keita, Sachi, Tetsuo, Sasamaru, and Ducker)

2. The Sleeping Knights surviving members (Siune, Jun, Tecchi, Talken, Nori)

3. The Laughing Coffin known members (PoH, XaXa, Johnny Black, Lux, Kuradeel)

One of those is indeed correct.

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Heyo, it's about goddamn time I released this update!  Okay, so it's a little shorter than the ones that came before it, but I found a nice place to cut it off. Plus, if I let the scene go any longer, the chapter would have ended up too long... and long chapters are an asspain to read even when it's all original content, never mind when it's basically just paraphrasing canon.

So anyway, I don't really have much to say here. You may as well just start reading.


Era of Survival: Rise of the Empress

Chapter Three: The Moment the Terror Began

Because of the ceilings that divided the one hundred zones of EoS, sunset was much shorter than it was in real life, given that you could only see the sun when it peeked through the skyline between the floors. However, the experience was no less beautiful than the real thing – if anything, it was even more so. The setting sun cast a full rainbow of colors upon the evening sky that almost looked like an aurora. In the game lore, this supposedly happened because of the magical energy which permeated the air of the Steel Castle in which the game was set.

The first and largest floor was supposed to be a fantastical paradise which had places that resembled that of every other floor in the game. You could see it in the monsters that populated the place – there was a little bit of every kind of species that existed on the earth, whether in reality or in legends. It painted a vivid picture of a world full of adventures of every sort.

But at times like these, even more so than usual, this world seemed amazingly radiant. No one could deny the splendor of this rainbow sunset that seemed so ethereal yet also so amazingly real. It couldn’t happen in reality, yet it looked so realistic that you’d almost think the developers had based it off of a real phenomena.

I’d seen this dozens of times in the beta, and yet it still instilled a sense of awe in me that was hard to dispel. But compared to the person sitting next to me, I probably hardly felt anything at all – this was his first day playing, his first time seeing this spectacle. He must have had a stronger reaction to it than I did.

“No matter how many times I see something incredible like this,” he spoke, almost as if on cue. I turned down to face him in the span of his short pause in speech. “I still can’t believe that this is inside the game.”

I shrugged my shoulders as he looked up at me for a comment. “Even if you use the word ‘inside,’ it’s not like our souls were sucked in. Our brain is just seeing, hearing and feeling instead of our eyes and ears… with the signals that the «Nerve Gear» is sending.”

Klein pouted like a little kid. It seemed that a dose of realism wasn’t the response that he was looking for. Not that I would have said something else had I known what he actually wanted to hear, but still.

“You might be used to it by now, but this is my first «Full Dive»!” he exclaimed, extending his hands in an elated gesture. His left hand bumped against my upper right leg. “The guy who made it has got to be the smartest guy in history! I’m so glad I was born in this era!”

“You’re exaggerating…”

But even if I wouldn’t admit it aloud, I agreed with the basis of what he was trying to say. The hardware that drove this VRMMORPG called Era of Survival – the Nerve Gear – was amazing on every level. As a gaming interface, its basic structure differed drastically from everything that came before it.

Unlike the old style hardware such as flat screen monitors or handheld controllers, this device only had a single interface: a streamlined helmet that covered your whole head and a good portion of one’s face. Inside, there were numerous signal transceivers. By using the electronic signals they sent, the gear accessed the user’s brain itself. The user’s body was rendered useless – the sensory signals the Nerve Gear sent went directly to your brain. All five senses were accounted for – the only thing you wouldn’t feel in the game was pain.

Half a year ago, this machine which started selling in may of 2022 successfully created a virtual reality. The electronics company which manufactured and marketed the device called the act of linking to this virtual reality a Full Dive. Being that it entailed a total seclusion from reality, the word ‘full’ fit rather well.

Because not only did the Nerve Gear send fake signals to the five senses and nullify your real ones. It also blocked and rerouted the orders that the brain sent to the body. The combination of these two things could be called the most basic requirement for moving around freely in a fully immersive virtual reality. If the body received the brain’s signals while in VR, if they wanted to run, their actual body would run into a wall.

Because the Nerve Gear could reroute the commands the brain sent through the spinal cord, Klein and I could both move our avatars around freely and swing our weapons around. In other words, it was as if we’d completely leapt into the game.

The effect of this experience captivated me and many gamers like me, to the point where we would almost certainly never be able to go back to the touch pens, motion sensors and handheld controllers of the last era of gaming.

Klein just kept staring at the wind passing through the plains and creating waves in the lakes and the walls of the tower in the distance which connected this floor and the one above it with actual tears in his eyes. This experience seemed to have genuinely moved him, like it did me on my first day of the beta test.

“So EoS is the first game for the Nerve Gear you’ve played, I take it?” I asked him nonchalantly. I already knew the answer, so I wasn’t very invested in the question.

Klein turned this way and nodded. His expression seemed to be going for calm and handsome, but the attempt was undercut significantly by his crude, punk-assed Mohawk, so instead he just looked really goofy, to a surprisingly amusing degree. I almost laughed, but I managed to suppress the impulse down to a mere smile instead.

Of course, this was probably completely different from his actual body in the real world. It was an avatar made out of complex data, created by choosing from list of options for each part of the normal human body. Naturally, I looked nothing like I did in real life, either, given that I chose to play as the opposite gender. I’d chosen features that made me look like a handsome if slightly effeminate protagonist from your average fantasy anime. Not any specific series, given that we’d never had a TV at home in the first place and I never became interested in any shows as a result, but just what I expected one’s main male lead to look like.

As my thoughts reached this point, Klein began speaking in his low, vigorous voice, which was once again different from his real one. “Well, to be exact, I sort of bought the hardware in a rush after I managed to get my hands on EoS. There were only a hundred thousand in the first batch, so I guess I was pretty lucky… but come to think of it, you were a hundred times luckier when you got picked for beta testing. They only picked a thousand!”

Here I found myself at a crossroad. Should I tell him I was scouted and risk him finding out who I really was and that I cross-played, or should I let him believe that I got the beta out of sheer luck so he didn’t raise questions about it that I didn’t want him knowing the answer to? One way was completely honest, and the other was deceptive in what it didn’t say… and I hated deception.

… But in the end, I hated the treatment that comes with being a known female gamer far more. “Yeah… I guess I really won the lottery. I heard that millions of people applied for the beta from all over the country and even a few thousand foreigners.”

Klein kept staring at me. “How many floors did you clear in the beta?”

“The lead group successfully defeated eight world bosses, which counts as clearing that boss’s floor, during the one month of testing,” I answered before holding up my finger to convey that this wasn’t the full story. “However, when the beta ended, a total of thirty-eight floors had been cleared, with all of the clears but the lead group’s eight coming from just three people working independently of each other. The game’s top three solo players each got roughly ten floors cleared by themselves.”

It wasn’t really a lie, but it wasn’t perfectly accurate. Two of the solo players got less than ten each, while the third one got exactly fourteen. A fact which I knew simply because I’d been keeping track of how many floors I’d cleared in my head. I got to fourteen just over three weeks in and got stuck fighting my fifteenth and the hardest I’d faced for the rest of the test period. Whenever anyone else cleared a floor, it made the news within hours, which is how I knew of the tallies of the lead group and the other two top solo players, all three of which had taken out exactly eight by the last day. But I had no reason to tell Klein any of that, given that he didn’t even ask for the little side detail about who did the clearing and how much. Not that I would have told him anything even if he had asked, but still…

“Whoa! There were solo players strong enough to solo world bosses?!” Klein exclaimed, completely unaware of what I’d just been thinking. However, his next sentence almost made me question that. “That is some hardcore shit…”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. Even if you were in the world boss’s level range or higher, most of them had not only intelligent AI, but also either easily spammed attacks or attacks with ranges that made evading require a near instant reaction speed combined with knowledge of the direction of every hit in the combo. It was something which made soloing them on the first try impossible – I’d been beaten by every single one of the bosses I’d soloed at least once. Usually once for each combo it had.

Or to put it as succinctly as possible… “Damn straight it’s hardcore. And even that word doesn’t do it justice.”

To tell the truth, I didn’t really get along with people in real life. I never minced my words even slightly, whether I was criticizing someone else of myself, and so I naturally made a lot of enemies with the things I said to and about people with no hesitation. In games, I got along with people even less, although for different reasons – in games I just didn’t bother associating with anyone I didn’t need for anything. During EoS’ closed beta, I got to know a couple people, but I didn’t get close enough to anyone to actually call them a friend.

But the player sitting next to me had a side to him that grows on you, and I didn’t find being with him uncomfortable, either. If it was him… I might be able to get along with him just fine, enough to call him a friend.

“So anyway,” I spoke after a few moments’ silence. “What do you want to do? Should we keep hunting until we level up? We’re both pretty close at this point.”

“You bet!” he replied with a big smile before his eyes darted to the bottom right corner of his vision. He must have been checking the time. When his eyes returned to meet mine again, his smile turned somewhat bashful. “… Is what I want to say, but… I gotta log off and eat. I’m starving!”

I nodded in understanding. “Yeah, I get you. Eating in game only makes you feel full IRL. Better not to do it unless you don’t give a damn about your physical body’s health.”

He flashed me an energetic thumbs-up with his left hand. “I know, but I prepared ahead of time! I ordered a hot pizza for five thirty!”

“Someone’s pretty thorough,” I replied, my voice just a few notes off from being sarcastic.

Why is it that I can’t talk to someone for ten minutes without being snarky or condescending? This is why I don’t have any friends…

I did my best to ignore that nagging voice at the back of my head. It always chimed in with criticism whenever one of my less normal traits reared its head. It wasn’t a literal voice in my head so much as the manifestation of my own self-loathing which I’d had ever since the event which caused my family to have to move. Well, chain of events, anyway. One that I had no intention of ever reliving.

Klein’s eyes lit up as he proudly thrust out his chest, blissfully unaware of my own inner self-deprecation. “Of course! Once I’ve eaten, I’ll be back.”

I nodded and gave him a thumbs up of my own. “Not sure where I’ll be when you’re done, but if you still want some pointers, message me when you log on again and I’ll meet you halfway.”

Why can’t I just admit that I want to hang out some more? I just had to make it sound impersonal, didn’t I? Wouldn’t want the guy to think that I like spending time with him or anything!

Once again, my inner critic did what it does best. And once again, I simply pretended it didn’t exist. And once again, the guy sitting next to me remained completely unaware of it. He nodded and got to his feet with a big, goofy smile on his face that seemed to project the opposite mood his large red Mohawk did.

“You bet I will, you’re amazing!” he exclaimed, his grin widening. “Hey, I promised to meet with some friends I know from another game in a bit. We registered our accounts together, so we spawned on the same floor. Want to friend them, too?”

I froze as my gaze shifted to the ground instinctively. I got along with Klein pretty well, but there was no guarantee that it’d be the same for his friends. Given my track record, I likely wouldn’t get along with them. And if that happened, a falling out with Klein would be inevitable.

But when I looked back up at him for a fleeting moment, he seemed to understand why I hesitated to accept his offer. He shook his head and gave me a reassuring grin. “If you don’t want to, that’s okay too. You do give off that solo player vibe. I can introduce you some other time.”

“… Yeah,” I offered with a nod. “Sorry… and thanks.”

As soon as I finished talking, he shook his head vigorously. “Hey there, I should be the one thanking you! You taught me everything, from targeting to sword skills to basic spellcasting! I’ll pay you back sometime soon. Mentally.”

As he smiled at me, he flashed me another thumbs up before taking another look at the clock. “Well, I better get going. Thanks a lot, Kiriko. Be seein’ ya.”

With that, he extended a hand out to me. In that solitary moment, a single fleeting thought flashed through my brain. For all intents and purposes, the person standing in front of me had all the makings of a fine guild leader. I was sure that he and his friends would become a powerful group as the game went on. I shook his hand with a small hint of satisfaction that I got to help someone like him on his first day.

“Yeah,” I nodded with a small smile of my own as I let go of his hand. “I’ll see you around.”

Klein stepped back a bit, put his right index finger and thumb together, and pulled downwards. This action opened his main menu window. Even though we were in a party, I wouldn’t be able to see it – the only way to see someone else’s menu was if you shared storage with them, which was something the game reserved for people especially close to one another… and married couples. Even so, I could still hear the ringing SFX which signified his menu opening.

I walked over to a nearby large rock and sat down on it before opening up my own window as well. I started moving my fingers to organize the items we got from the rare coyote mobs. I knew I’d gotten more than just a single one-handed straight sword. The moment my pupil disappeared, I planned to equip a second sword in my other hand. It was the thing I’d been known for in the beta, so much so that my doing it would have been a dead giveaway for my identity to literally anyone who’d read my computer blog while I’d been playing it or checked the leaderboards posted by Argus at the end of the beta. I was the only dual wielder in the test period who could use all the sword skills I’d ever learned with either hand with no difficulty.

But at that point, I wouldn’t get the chance. That was the precise moment in time when Aincrad, or «Era of Survival», stopped being just a fun, fully immersive game for me and Klein both.

“That’s weird…” my first friend in the official release spoke in a strange tone, scratching his head with his left hand. “What’s up with that? There’s no log out button.”


What do you think? Good place to stop or what?

I mean yeah, I'm still basically ripping off the novels here, but I kind of don't have very much of a choice for day one, since I went with having Kiriko meet Klein early on in my version of this fic. Rest assured, the moment the day one arc ends, I plan to do a mini arc of all original content... before starting the next major arc, in which some of it will be based off of Progressive but most of it will deviate massively from the Aincrad reboot. After that, it's all original content from there on out.

Not much else to say, really. I do have something cool to show you, though. Check out this story's cover, my friends! It's worth noting that not only is Kiriko fighting while wearing a diaper, but she's also fighting wearing a wet diaper. And she's still kicking her enemy's ass. That should give you a good idea of what's in store for our protagonist in this story...

Anyway, that's about it from me. Be sure to leave a comment telling me your thoughts on the story, and I'll do my best to respond as quickly as possible! See you next time!

 

c_xvwritingda_kimiko_l_by_b_bunny_artistry-dbdrvac.png

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2 hours ago, Unbeknownst said:

It's time to kick this story into overdrive!

... But seriously, you chose an excellent place to leave off. So many options are open for great character reactions and where the story will go in the future. 

Can't wait! XD (But I will. ;) )

That first line honestly sounds like a YuGiOh 5D's reference... is that what you were going for?

But trust me, once this story really gets going, overdrive is going to be an understatement. Characters will kick ass blindingly fast. (These two sentences are what happens when a wordsmith decides to fuck around with what he's trying to say for no apparent reason.)

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On 6/25/2017 at 11:35 PM, Unbeknownst said:

Excuse me while I kowtow. I totally was not expecting you to get that reference.

And I wouldn't be following this story almost literally by the minute if I didn't trust you come up with something wicked awesome. 

I was an obsessive compulsive card collector in the 5D's era, and I started watching the anime all the way back in GX (my favorite protags are Jaden/Judai and Yusei, the rest are a varying combination between cheater, idiot or asswipe in my mind)... it would be impossible for me to miss a reference like that.

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  • 10 months later...

Okay, so like... I said this for Asuna's Descent already, but since I'm even closer with the next chapter of this, I'll just go ahead and say it: expect an update to this pretty soon.

The basis for next chapter of this story, that being the next chapter of a SFW story I write on FFN, has been completed, and is just awaiting QC edits before I release it there. I'm probably going to release the EoS version first, but I want it to get the QC stuff done to the other version first before converting it into what I'll be posting here, so... yeah, it's probably gonna be a day or two before an update gets posted.

Also, for anyone who's wondering, EoS will stop using that story as an outline after the launch day arc is over, after which point it'll be a more or less original storyline that will have nothing to do with any form of canon, be it the original novels, anime, or Progressive. Launch day is like, the singular part of the story which more or less follows canon, mainly because, well I mean... how else exactly does one handle the events which need to happen on the first day?

Anyway, yeah, expect updates to both this and Asuna's Descent in the next week or so. That is all.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don’t always throw out deadlines for story updates… but when I do, something gets in the way and I end up missing them by literal weeks.

Meme parody quote aside, yeah, this chapter may or may not be a little short for my tastes… and I couldn’t get my usual editor to QC it before I released it, hence why it ended up being so late.

Still, thought I owed it to you guys to still release it anyway, so I did some QC on it myself and then converted it into the EoS nomenclature format so I could post it, and here we are.

Read on.


Era of Survival: Rise of the Empress

Chapter Four: Walls Closing In

As soon as I heard this, I immediately exited my inventory and went back to the main menu to check for myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the guy, but he didn’t exactly strike me as the most detail oriented kind of person… so there was a good chance he just missed.

As soon as the main menu’s long row of buttons replaced my inventory window, I moved my hand down in a movement that had almost become second nature to me, and at the very end of the list, I found…

My body froze as my mental processes came to a screeching halt.

It wasn’t there. It was just as Klein said. The button that had been there during the beta test period – hell, even right after I logged on if I were to venture a guess – had disappeared. I stared at the empty space for a couple of seconds before scanning the rest of the menu, making sure it hadn’t just changed positions, but much to my chagrin, the menu’s original order had been left intact, sans the one missing button.

“You’re right… I don’t see it either,” I replied as if I’d seen a ghost. I had a bad feeling about what this might mean…

It wasn’t as if there was nothing in place of the button which had gone AWOL. No, far from it. There was a button there, all right. But the button… it was completely blank. And as I’d just confirmed, touching it didn’t do anything. It was almost like…

It’s like it’s a feature built into the game… but that can’t be right, can it?

“Well, I mean, this is day one of the retail release, so these sorts of bugs aren’t exactly unheard of,” Klein responded in a jovial manner, making it clear he hadn’t thought this issue through. “I betcha the GMs are going crazy from the number of messages flooding in!”

I shrugged my shoulders before pointing over at him with my free hand. “You sure you want to treat this so casually, buddy? Because I mean, if I were the one with a pizza delivery coming in five minutes, I’d be flipping out over this, too.”

I went back to my inventory with a smile as I watched him jump around, wide-eyed, at the realization that he’d be missing out on a meal if this wasn’t resolved quickly. I threw away a couple of items I didn’t need to make sure my inventory stayed well under my weight limit so I could fight without an Agility penalty before walking over to my friend just as he began shouting his grievances at the top of his lungs.

“Come on, why does this shit always happen to me?! My anchovy pizza and ginger ale are as good as gone now, this is just my damn luck!”

Setting aside his questionable taste in pizza and soda, I patted him on the shoulder to get his attention before bringing him back to reality. “Screaming about it isn’t going to fix the problem for you. Call a GM. They could cut you off from their end.”

“I already tried, but no one’s picking up, it’s like all the staff went AWOL!” he countered, something in his response setting me on edge. “Kiriko… total newb question, but is there any other way to log out?”

After listening to his question, my building anxiety suddenly spiked, and my breath hitched. I knew the answer without even having to think about it… and that answer suddenly felt frightening, its weight making me feel like I might choke on the virtual air around me.

“No…” I replied in a hollow voice, giving it my all to force the words out even though I could barely breathe. “Nothing but the menu. That’s always been the only way to do it yourself unless you have developer mode access.”

Klein’s frenzy quieted down in an instant as he looked at me with an annoyingly curious expression. “Wait, how do you know developers had other ways?”

What I’d been referring to was a feature in a special access submenu I’d had which I’d found on my first day of logging on with my developer account in the beta. If you turned it on, the Nerve Gear would automatically keep track of the time you spent logged in, then kick you from the game server for the day after you’d been logged on a full collective eight hours. Supposedly it was because game staff didn’t get paid overtime for test work, so I’d turned it off immediately since I wanted to sink as much time possible into playing the game.

Not that Klein here needs to know anything about that… I had enough people lambast me for my developer access in the beta to last a thousand years, anyway.

“That doesn’t matter right now, and more importantly, it wouldn’t have helped us even if we had it,” I told him, shaking my head for emphasis. “The developers feature which could have auto kicked us would’ve only activated after eight hours straight of playing. We’ve been logged on since one PM, and it’s only five-thirty or so right now. We’re still three and a half hours short of the prerequisite. By that point, your pizza would’ve been long gone.”

Klein’s eyes lit up, and before he even spoke, I knew it was gonna be something totally stupid. “What about turning the power off or pulling the—”

“Klein? How do you think we can move our bodies in this virtual environment without physically messing with a controller or keyboard?” I cut him off before I got a nosebleed out of the sheer level of stupid he was forcing me to put up with. “The «Nerve Gear» intercepts every signal your brain sends to your body except the ones that keep automatic processes like breathing and your heartbeat going. We’re all basically paralyzed while we’re logged in, the commands to move our bodies move our avatars instead.”

He quieted back down immediately, seemingly stunned by the taser that was the cold reality for everyone in the game. Probably also because I sounded more than a little irked at him, being on the verge of an anxiety attack myself and rather lacking in patience for stupid shit as a result.

“So then… unless someone fixes the bug,” he started, looking as if he didn’t want to agitate me any further. “Or someone IRL takes our Gear off, we have to wait it out?”

I nodded, a pit forming in my stomach as I made a crucial realization. “Yeah… but I’m pretty sure that if it were really a bug, they would’ve already taken measures to log everyone out until it was fixed.”

Klein gave me a strange look. “Why would they do that?”

“Think about it. This game’s stock sold out. There were a hundred thousand copies in total. That’s not a small amount of people,” I explained, my voice gradually riling up as I considered something which wasn’t even really the worst case scenario. “That’s around a thousandth of Japan’s total population who are stuck here right now. Tomorrow is a work and school day. Even if you assume only half of them have jobs, which wouldn’t make much sense given how expensive the Nerve Gear is, even if EoS was fairly cheap, if this were a bug and it was allowed to be continued for even a solid 24 hours, it would have a pretty large effect on the overall workforce.”

Klein seemed to follow along closely throughout my explanation. Then, the moment I mentioned that tomorrow was a work day, his eyes lit up, and he seemed to see where I was going with this. The moment I finished talking, he connected the dots on his own and spelled it out.

“Shit, you’re right… a lot of people might lose their jobs over that…” he said, before his face paled, his eyes going wild. “Shit, I live alone and my boss is a prick! If this bug doesn’t get fixed today, I’ll lose my job! No one would remove the Nerve Gear for me and I’d miss over half a day at work bare minimum!”

… Well, that was a misjudgment on my part. I really didn’t want him to start freaking out again when I was on the verge of doing it myself. I had to change the topic somehow… “I have a mom and a sister, so they should notice and remove my Gear before dinner time… if you don’t live too far, I might be able to—”

I was cut off by the sudden feeling of Klein’s rough hands grasping my shoulders and shaking me like a ragdoll. I let out a startled squeak which sounded almost feminine, even in my stock male avatar creation character voice, much to my chagrin, but he didn’t seem like he was even paying attention to it.

Safe… for now.

“You have a sister?!” he nearly shouted, brimming with excitement and… enthusiasm? Was that the right word? “How old is s—”

This time, I was the one to cut him off… with an uppercut to the balls which literally sent him flying. He fell flat on his ass into the grass, clutching his privates as if he were in actual pain. “Ack, what the hell?! That hurts, asshole!”

I grabbed my sword by its handle, unsheathed it from its scabbard on my belt, and tossed it through the air to make a show of it before catching it and pointing its blade at his throat. “Try and make an advance on my sister again and find out firsthand what it feels like to get killed by decapitation, we clear?”

Wait a minute… did he just say it hurt him? You shouldn’t be able to feel pain… maybe he was just imagining it…

“C-crystal… yeesh, didn’t figure you for the overprotective type, man…”

I sighed, sheathing my sword once more before crossing my arms in front of me, absently taking note of the fact that my folded arms had subconsciously settled just below where my chest would’ve been if I had my real body instead of this male avatar, before raising up slightly. I could’ve just been imagining it, but I felt my shoulders automatically relax at the gesture, even though this avatar didn’t actually have my real life cow udder breasts weighing its shoulders down… guess it was a reflexive sensation, psychological as much as it was physical.

“It’s what older siblings are for,” I told him, careful not to slip up and say ‘sisters’ instead of ‘siblings.’ “No offense, you seem like a decent guy, but… I have no idea who you are, nor how old you are… and your mohawk doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in me about trusting you with personal info, dude.”

Klein’s expression became fierce as he continued to clutch his groin, glaring back up at me. “I picked it because designing my avatar was taking too long, give it a rest already!”

Well, such a claim might actually be credible… but if he was telling the truth, then he was the most rush happy guy with avatar creation I’d ever run into in EoS, retail and beta alike. The mohawk was indeed the first male hair option, and the one which was selected by default. But the hair option I had was literally the next option in the list, so if he’d scrolled over even once, he’d have found something which looked significantly less trashy.

“Your stupid hair aside, don’t you think this whole situation is weird?” I decided to throw him a lifeline, bringing his attention back to the problem at hand.

“Well, duh,” he answered, still sounding a little testy after all the shade I’d thrown at his hair today. “It’s a bug. Weird is in its job description.”

I shook my head, pinching the arch of my nose for a minute to help me bite back a snarky comment or two I had in reserve. “Not necessarily, but whatever. It’s not just a potential bug. It’s a potential bug which prevents players of a «Full Dive» VR game from logging out. It’s a big enough problem to bother the operation of the game itself.”

“Be more specific about what you mean,” he requested, his voice alone conveying his confusion without me even looking at him.

“Let’s take your pizza as an example. If you paid for it beforehand, then it’s just sitting at your doorstep, getting colder every second,” I started, the hand on my nose pinching harder to help keep me from snapping. “And if you didn’t pay for it beforehand, then the pizza place you ordered it from have probably already eaten the loss of time and labor of making the pizza and gone back to work, and you are now without dinner IRL. Either way, that alone is an actual economical loss, right?”

I closed my eyes to hide the annoyance in them as he made the snide comment, “Cold pizza… yeah, talk about worthless all right!”

Just ignore him, just keep going with your point…

“Like I said before, if this were an actual bug, then they’d have already taken measures to log everyone out while they fixed it,” I repeated myself, my eyes opening again and gazing out at the rainbow sunset which somehow seemed almost ominous now that my thoughts had been colored with such darkness. “For example, if they shut down the server, we’d all be logged out automatically. But… it’s been over ten minutes since we first noticed this problem, and in that time, what have EoS’ staff done to remedy or even address it?”

Klein’s eyes widened as he considered it for only a moment. “Nothing… no one has done anything about it.”

“Exactly. No server shutdown, not even a system message to tell us they know it’s happening and are working on a fix,” I affirmed his conclusion, watching his face don a serious expression which really didn’t fit well with his stupid hair.

He rubbed his chin, almost as if stroking a beard he didn’t actually have, and his eyes shined contemplatively. “It’s out of character. The company that created EoS, Argus, is a company that’s famous for being considerate of its users, right? The crazy ass queues at stores and online copies selling out in seconds despite there being a hundred thousand copies available speaks for itself about their rep. For a company like that to screw up and handle it like this…

I nodded. Looks like he was starting to catch on… guess he wasn’t beyond salvation after all. “My point exactly. Adding onto that point, this is also the first VRMMMORPG. If something goes wrong this badly now, the government might pass regulations for the whole genre. How Argus handles this will probably have lasting impacts on the entire VR gaming industry, and they’re totally blowing it.”

I looked back out at the sunset again, watching the sun creep a little lower, and I had to fight back the urge to shiver in the growing cold. Floor one’s seasons and climate were based on the real Japan, so it was autumn here as well… but somehow, I got the sense that the chills I was suddenly getting weren’t entirely thanks to the lowering temperature. To steady my nerves, I took a deep, cold breath—

Which immediately hitched in my throat as I heard a familiar, yet sinister sound emanating from the direction of the «SBC Glocken». Not just any sound, either; it was a warning tone. If this was them addressing the problem, then picking this tone to start with… meant that something must’ve been really bad about it.

All the more fuel for the growing fire pit of dread once again forming in my stomach.

I turned to Klein, who had forgotten about his pain and hopped to his feet, and for a solitary moment, our eyes met and I registered the alarm on his face, clear as day. “What’s this?!”

Right after he finished talking, two pillars of clear blue light engulfed us. Past the thickening blue veil, the plains in my vision blurred steadily, until I couldn’t even make out Klein, standing right in front of me.

I recognized the effect immediately – it was identical to item-induced teleportation. But I didn’t have any of the prerequisite items to make use of it, nor did I shout the proper command, which could only mean that someone among the staff initiated a forced teleport. But why do that without even giving us a warning beforehand…?

Almost strikes me as something Kayaba would do…

Little did I know just how spot on my prediction would be.


For those of you who are wondering when the fuck the fetish content will make its debut… don’t expect anything until after the conclusion of the Day One Arc. After that, there’ll be a Kiriko subplot regarding it, followed by subplots for other characters, in no particular order.

Slight spoiler that you should know already if you read these notes: by the end of every female character’s subplots, they will all be wearing some form of a diaper. How, why, how long it takes, and diaper style may vary, but there is no avoiding it for any of them.

Anyway, I’m gonna get to work on the next chapter of this fucker. By which I mean the next chapter of the fic which serves as the basis for this one.

See you then!

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6 hours ago, Unbeknownst said:

Iiiiiiiiiiiit's back folks! Good to see ya round again mate.

Amazing how when you stop posting content, even if you still comment on other people's content, the site seems to come to the collective opinion that you don't exist until you start posting content again...

Glad to be back, for however long it lasts. ? 

Edited by WriterForce6XV (see edit history)
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