Game Open Beta

After teasing Toka for a while longer, Chen Changsheng once again reminded her to take the game seriously before letting her go prepare lunch.

The open beta for Sword Art Online was scheduled for exactly 1:00 PM.

So there wasn't much time left for Toka and the others.

...

As time slowly ticked by, players all across Japan who had managed to snatch up the gaming helmets watched the clock inch closer to 1:00 PM, silently counting down.

At the Kirigaya residence, seeing only one minute remaining, Kirigaya Kazuto picked up the helmet gifted to him by the game company as a beta tester. He silently placed it on his head and lay down on his bed.

...

At the Yuuki residence, Yuuki Asuna quietly brought out her brother's gaming helmet. She put it on just as carefully and lay on her bed with a look of pure excitement.

The Yuuki family owned a gaming company. As a competitor, her brother had naturally acquired a helmet to witness this new era of the gaming industry.

However, something sudden came up for him, which allowed her to get her hands on the helmet.

...

In a luxurious manor in Tokyo, a blonde girl in a maid outfit, Hayasaka Ai, quietly taught her lady how to wear the gaming helmet, sighing softly in her heart.

"I really never expected that my lady, who is completely hopeless with electronics, would actually want to play a video game one day."

"Hmph, it's only because Secretary Fujiwara, that cancer of the Earth, kept annoying me about it. I only reluctantly agreed. Hayasaka, are you done setting it up?"

"Yes, yes, it's all set up. My lady, you can lie down on the bed now and call out the login phrase."

As Hayasaka Ai spoke, she placed another helmet on her own head. After setting it up, she lay down beside Shinomiya Kaguya.

"Link Start!"

...

The Fujiwara residence, the Sawamura residence, the Takanashi residence...

"Link Start!"

"..."

Nearly a hundred thousand players entered the game world known as Sword Art Online almost simultaneously on this weekend.

Aincrad Corporation.

In a massive backend data processing center, Koizumi Koichi sat alone in front of a computer. He quietly watched the rapidly climbing player count, waiting silently in his heart.

Half an hour later, as the player count stopped at just over a hundred thousand, he noticed that the company's backend could no longer monitor any of the game's data.

Furthermore, all the administrative privileges in the company's backend had lost their effect.

"Sigh."

Looking at everything unfolding before him, Koizumi Koichi let out a quiet sigh, sighing in his heart.

"Senior, you really went and did it."

"But don't worry, Senior. I will definitely make sure the seed you left behind flourishes."

Saying this, he prepared to stand up and leave.

However, the very next moment, his pupils shrank.

He saw that the massive number of servers in the processing center were actually slowly stopping their operations.

Could it be that his senior brother had secretly transferred the game data away?

He pondered in his heart.

...

At the Takanashi residence, Chen Changsheng had his eyes tightly closed. A massive amount of spiritual energy enveloped the entire Earth. Subsequently, the world of Aincrad—which was nothing more than a string of colossal data—was stuffed into the spiritual world of a low-grade spiritual artifact he had named the Lord of Games.

After finishing all this, a faint smile appeared on Chen Changsheng's face.

His gaze penetrated into the interior of Aincrad.

...

On the first floor of Aincrad, in the beginner's town, a large number of players who had finished customizing their avatars finally stepped excitedly into the virtual reality game they had been longing for.

"Wow! Is this a virtual reality game? It's amazing! Absolutely amazing!"

A blonde female player with an incredibly cute face but a tall, explosive figure, sporting the name Chika-chan above her head, looked at the incredibly realistic town around her and cried out in awe.

Her display, however, did not attract much attention from the other players.

Because at this moment, they were also lost in shock.

As for the blonde female player's stunning appearance...

Heh, out of the hundred thousand players currently in the beginner's village, aside from a few with bizarre tastes, who wasn't a handsome guy or a beautiful girl?

Chika-chan was naturally our Secretary Fujiwara, Fujiwara Chika.

At this time, after marveling at the realism of the game, Fujiwara Chika gave a mischievous smile and swiped her small hand in the air to open the game menu. She quickly found the friend function and entered Shinomiya Kaguya into the friend search bar.

Sure enough, the next moment she found a player named Shinomiya Kaguya.

In Aincrad, a player's avatar portrait was basically automatically generated based on the appearance of their in-game character.

But right now, Shinomiya Kaguya's portrait looked exactly the same as she did in the real world.

"Hehe, as expected of Kaguya-chan, she really entered the game looking just like an NPC."

Chika smiled mischievously and tapped the only available operation option: Send Friend Request.

Then, she began to wait.

Although most of the other players had already started leaving the beginner's village to grind monsters in the wild, Kaguya had only agreed to play this game after her relentless begging. She couldn't just leave Kaguya behind.

However, after a long time passed, Chika still hadn't received Kaguya's acceptance of her friend request.

"Oh no! Kaguya-chan is hopeless with electronics. Could it be that she didn't notice the red dot appearing in front of her eyes?!"

She suddenly felt a bit anxious.

However, being anxious was useless. Because of the abundant funding, the entirety of Aincrad was simply too vast.

Just the beginner's town on the first floor alone was like a true grand city, easily capable of accommodating a hundred thousand players. Therefore, she had absolutely no way to contact Kaguya in the short term.

Seeing that a large number of players were already heading out of the city, Chika pushed the worries in her heart to the back of her mind.

"Well, whatever. I'll just contact Kaguya-chan when we log off. For now, I'd better go level up. I can't fall behind the other players!"

Muttering to herself, she followed the crowd of players heading out of the beginner's town.

Meanwhile, wearing a set of beginner's clothes, Shinomiya Kaguya was walking along the streets of the beginner's town with a look of absolute shock. She paid absolutely no mind to the envelope icon with a glowing red dot near the corner of her eye, assuming that this was just how the game was supposed to look.

Right at that moment, an uncertain voice rang out from behind her.

"President Shinomiya?"

Hearing this, Shinomiya Kaguya turned around to look, only to see a tall, curvaceous girl with long blonde twin tails looking at her with an expression of surprise.

"You are?"

"It really is you! President Shinomiya, I'm Sawamura Spencer Eriri, a second-year student at Shuchi'in Academy."

Yes, the girl was indeed Eriri, who had just finished customizing her avatar and entered the game.

As for her gaming helmet, after finding out in the chat group that Rikka had over ten gaming helmets, she had shamelessly asked Rikka for one.

Originally, after she mentioned the name Sword Art Online, Gu Xiaoxiao recalled the plot of Sword Art Online.

However, she had only watched the first season of the anime, so she only uploaded the first season and informed Eriri and Rikka that this was a death game.

But later, Chen Changsheng spoke mysteriously in the group chat, saying that if possible, she absolutely had to enter this game, and that there would be a massive surprise waiting for her.

So, Eriri chose to enter the game without any hesitation.

The moment she spawned, she spotted her school's student council president, Shinomiya Kaguya.

Initially, even though Shinomiya Kaguya had her own face and name, she acted so much like an NPC that Eriri was a bit hesitant to approach her. However, after a moment of hesitation, she decided to test the waters.

To her surprise, it really was the student council president.

"President Shinomiya, why are you still in the starter town? Aren't you going out to level up?"

Hearing this, Shinomiya Kaguya turned her head away in slight embarrassment.

"This is my first time playing something like a video game."

"Are you serious?!"

Eriri looked shocked, but when she remembered that President Shinomiya usually used an old-fashioned flip phone with physical buttons, she believed her a bit more.

The young lady of a prominent family... her upbringing sure is strict.

After sighing inwardly, Eriri smiled and looked at Kaguya.

"Since that is the case, I will take you out to the wild to level up, President Shinomiya. I might not look like it, but I am actually a pro gamer who has played a ton of different types of games!"

Right after she finished speaking, a blonde girl quietly approached from behind her.

"Um, I am also a student at Shuchiin Academy. Could you take me along too? Oh, right, my name is..."

"Asuna."

...