Xiao Ai

An hour passed by in a flash.

Just as the players flooded into the wild areas of Aincrad's first floor to start leveling up.

Akihiko Kayaba, the game's GM, was planning a grand stage speech.

In the lowest level of Aincrad, inside the exclusive GM room, Akihiko Kayaba's lips curled up slightly, his face filled with uncontrollable excitement.

This was an expression that Koizumi Koichi and his girlfriend rarely got to see.

And as he finished editing the final program, the smile on his face grew even deeper.

His finger lightly tapped the projection in front of him.

The next moment, his figure vanished from the small room.

At the same time, the giant bronze bell at the very top of the starter town began to ring.

All the players suddenly found themselves teleported to the plaza of the starter town. Crimson electronic screens, like bricks, densely packed together, seemingly enveloping the entire world within them.

While the players were still marveling at this sudden change, they saw a massive figure wrapped in a grayish-black robe, looking like the Grim Reaper, floating in mid-air right above the center of the plaza. From the darkness beneath the hood, only a pair of eyes was visible, looking down at all the players like a god.

What is going on? Is this a game event?

What the hell? Couldn't they issue a notice for a game event? I didn't even have time to pick up the gear that just dropped!

Wow! This event looks so immersive!

...

The gathered players were clustered together, and it didn't take long for the entire plaza to become noisy.

Just then.

Silence!

As the giant figure in the sky spoke, all the players found that they were suddenly unable to speak.

Everyone turned their gazes to the figure in the sky, their eyes beginning to show signs of dissatisfaction.

At this moment, the figure slowly spoke.

Hello everyone, I am Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of this game.

Perhaps everyone has already noticed that the logout button cannot be found in the game menu. You might think this is a bug, but I am here to tell you that this is the original design of the game. It is not a bug!

From now on, none of you will be able to log out of the game, unless...

You clear all one hundred floors of the game!

As Akihiko Kayaba's words fell, the players' expressions varied—anger, mockery, nervousness, fear...

Akihiko Kayaba silently watched these players, and then dropped another explosive piece of news.

There is one more thing I must warn you about. If your HP drops to zero in the game, there will be no resurrection option. At the same time, you will suffer complete brain death in the real world. This is not a joke.

Because just now, even though I hacked into national television, the internet, and social media networks to announce this news, many friends and family members still chose to forcefully remove the players' gaming helmets. However, those players did not wake up.

As Akihiko Kayaba spoke, virtual screens rapidly appeared in the sky one after another.

There were videos from various TV stations, online platforms, and social networks broadcasting his previous words, as well as videos showing parents and friends forcefully removing helmets, only to find the players completely unresponsive, like vegetables.

Seeing this, the players below all changed their expressions drastically, and many directly began to curse Akihiko Kayaba.

It was only then that the crowd realized the silence restriction had been lifted at some point.

But Akihiko Kayaba did not care about the players' angry curses. He looked at them indifferently and spoke again.

Oh, by the way, finally, I have prepared a small gift for all the players. It has already been distributed to your inventories. I hope it will bring you a little help.

After saying that, he disappeared into the air, and the red light screens in the sky also began to slowly dissipate.

Seeing this, most of the players opened their inventories.

However, the next moment, the players who opened their inventories found that an item inside was forcefully activated. A white light bloomed with a ten-meter radius centered on themselves. All the players illuminated by the white light underwent a massive transformation at the same time.

Women who were originally tall and beautiful suddenly turned into fat men.

There were also tall, elegant beauties who directly turned into short little lolis.

Beside Kaguya Shinomiya, after Kaguya clumsily opened her inventory, Eriri's height shrank significantly the next moment. Originally half a head taller than Kaguya, she instantly became much shorter than her. At the same time, her hot figure deflated like a punctured balloon, becoming exactly the same as Kaguya's.

Eriri silently looked at Kaguya and Asuna, and then saw a flash of surprise on their faces.

Huh! So this is what you really look like, Sawamura-san?

Eriri: ...

There were many players in the same situation as them, and the entire starter town plaza became even noisier than before.

...

After finishing his speech, Akihiko Kayaba, who had blended back into the crowd as a player, looked at the chaotic players around him, his disguised face full of expectation.

However, before he could anticipate for long, a crisp young girl's voice rang out in the sky again.

Hehehehe~

Akihiko Kayaba: ???

Akihiko Kayaba looked up with a bewildered expression, only to see that in the exact spot he had just occupied, a young girl was floating in the sky with a cute smile. She was dressed in punk-style clothing, had long silver twin-tails, looked to be about fourteen or fifteen years old, and had an extremely exquisite and adorable little face.

Hello! Good evening, players! From now on, this game has been hijacked by me!

As the girl spoke, she adorably held up her right hand in a V-sign before continuing.

I am the God of Games. Everyone can call me Ai. It's fine if you call me Ai-chan or little Ai-chan too, I won't mind at all.

What the hell?

Akihiko Kayaba was completely dumbfounded. He then realized that he might have been hacked, so he tried to bring up his GM control panel. However, after trying for a long time, he found that he couldn't summon it no matter what.

I told you! This game has already been hijacked by me, Ai! Oh, Akihiko Kayaba hiding among the players! You don't have GM privileges anymore! Right now, you are nothing more than an ordinary player!

But please rest assured, players. Although Ai has hijacked the game, I won't hurt everyone!

However, hearing her cute tone, a hot-tempered player below couldn't help but roar in anger.

What kind of nonsense are you spouting, you bastard! No one can leave the game! If our HP drops to zero, we die! Doesn't that count as hurting the players?! You must be Akihiko Kayaba in disguise too, right?! You criminal, let us out right now! Bastard!

Hearing this, Ai put one hand on her hip and raised her index finger forward with the other.

NO NO NO! Although it is true that you temporarily cannot leave the game, who said you would die if your HP drops to zero? Akihiko Kayaba? This game doesn't belong to him anymore! It belongs to the God of Games, Ai-chan!

"Among you players, there should be some who just saw yourselves in that video, right? Your helmets were taken off by your families. Did you die?"

Following Ai's words, about a dozen players looked shocked, because they were the very subjects of the video that had just played.

Ai didn't stop talking, but continued with a smile.

"You won't die! Nobody will die! But..."

A wicked smirk appeared on the cute girl's face.

"Levels, experience, inventory, items, and so on! Absolutely everything! It will all be reset to zero! So even if your health bar hitting zero doesn't kill you in real life, you definitely shouldn't let yourselves die easily!"

"Now then, let the game begin! Everyone, have fun! Be happy! Play the game without a care in the world!"