Siren's Downfall

Although there were a hundred thousand players, after Kayaba Akihiko's expansion and Ai's modifications, the entire first floor's wilderness was still incredibly sparsely populated.

Because it was simply too massive.

At this moment, on a plain in the wilderness, there were only Sirin and her five companions within a radius of several miles.

Sirin walked at the very front, her confident gaze searching for her prey.

By now, she had completely adapted to this game.

Games, after all, were just about fighting monsters and leveling up.

It wasn't as if she hadn't watched Kiana and Bronya play while she was in Kiana's body before; it was just that this game was more realistic.

But in her eyes, they were essentially the same. The beginner phase was definitely a breeze to level up in, otherwise, who would play your game?

Soon, they spotted a giant wild boar a dozen meters away, slowly walking toward them. Upon seeing them, it immediately charged.

Seeing this, Sirin tightened her grip on her spear and charged right back, her beautiful face full of confidence.

"Go, Sister Sirin!"

Eriri cheered for Sirin, but the very next moment...

Bang—

Thud—

Splat—

The instant Sirin made contact with the wild boar, its massive head slammed heavily into her body. Sirin only felt the strength leave the hand gripping her spear as her body was sent flying backward.

In the moment she was sent flying, Sirin felt as if time had slowed down around her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could still see Eriri's excited expression cheering her on.

By the time she flew back and slid to a halt right at Eriri's feet, she clearly saw that the expression on Eriri's face had turned completely blank.

Sirin: "..."

The sheer shame in her heart made Sirin immediately choose to close her eyes and play dead.

Beside Eriri, Kaguya and the other three girls also turned their strange gazes toward Eriri.

It was as if they were saying, is this the pro gamer you were talking about, Eriri?

Eriri: "..."

"S-Sorry, I didn't know Sister Sirin was actually this bad at playing games."

Eriri's words made Sirin, who was lying on the ground, twitch, and then she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter.

Hayasaka Ai, the only reliable one among the girls, grumbled inwardly before turning her head to look at the wild boar. The beast had just stopped moving after sending Sirin flying and was now shaking its head in place. She spoke up to remind them.

"Everyone, that wild boar seems to be stuck in a post-skill cooldown animation. This is our chance."

Hearing this, Eriri and the others turned to look, only to see that the wild boar's head-shaking movements had indeed slowed down significantly.

"Great chance! Let's attack it quickly before it recovers!"

Saying this, Eriri pulled out her rapier, which had no stat bonuses, and charged at the wild boar.

Seeing this, the other girls glanced at Sirin lying on the ground, then also pulled out their respective weapons and charged at the level 1 beginner wild boar monster.

Sirin's guess wasn't wrong. Neither Kayaba Akihiko nor Ai wanted the monsters in the first floor's wilderness to be too strong; these monsters were nothing more than a hidden benefit for the players.

The real pressure of the first floor, aside from a few hidden levels, all lay within the labyrinth leading to the second floor.

With Eriri and the other four girls working together, they quickly took down the wild boar.

The experience points given by the wild boar were also evenly distributed among the six girls in the party.

Lying on the ground, Sirin looked at the experience gain notification that she could see even with her eyes closed. The embarrassment on her face could no longer be hidden, so she had no choice but to climb up from the ground, not daring to look at Eriri and the other five girls.

"Well, Sister Sirin, everyone has their first time. We just need to work hard together to get stronger."

Eriri naturally noticed Sirin's embarrassment and stepped forward to pat her on the shoulder and comfort her.

Hearing this, Sirin instinctively turned her head to look, only to see Eriri, Kaguya, Hayasaka Ai, Asuna, and Chika all looking at her with smiles on their faces.

There was nothing but kindness on the girls' faces.

"I..."

Sirin stared at them blankly. Feeling her currently incredibly empty body, she turned her head away from them.

"I will become strong again."

After she finished speaking, she picked up the spear from the ground and silently browsed through the basic skills on her interface.

Previously, she hadn't thought much of these things at all, but now, as the memories appeared in her mind, she studied them extremely seriously.

Seeing this, Hayasaka Ai gave Sirin a somewhat strange look.

What did she mean by becoming strong again?

Could it be that you used to be really good at games, and now you've inexplicably become bad?

It seemed there was indeed such a possibility. After all, this was everyone's first time playing a virtual reality game.

In the GM room, Chen Changsheng looked at Sirin, who was now immersed in leveling up with Eriri and the others, and had already developed some simple teamwork with them. A satisfied smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

"Not bad, not bad."

Then, with a wave of his hand, he began to plan out hidden class quests for his acquaintances in the game.

How did he plan them?

"Ai, plan it out."

...

Time flew by rapidly. The official open beta of Sword Art Online had already been two days ago.

The entirety of Japan was thrown into turmoil because of it. By now, this incident, which had been classified as the greatest kidnapping case of the 21st century, had attracted the attention of people all over the world.

Among them, besides the Japanese authorities, financial tycoons and various bigwigs from countries around the world had also cast their gazes upon the island nation of Japan, upon the game company Aincrad Corporation, and upon the terrifying technologies mastered by Kayaba Akihiko that were decades ahead of the rest of the world.

But at this moment, they simply couldn't find Kayaba Akihiko. It was as if the man had vanished into thin air.

As for Kayaba Akihiko's collaborator, Koizumi Koichi...

After being invited by various bigwigs from around the world one by one and forcefully refusing them, in just two short days, his two neighbors both moved away on the same day, and two new neighbors moved in at the same time. Inside his home, without his knowledge at all, several bullets of different calibers appeared. Unexploded bombs also appeared out of nowhere at his investment company, Aincrad, as well as in his car.

In just two days, Koizumi Koichi seemed to have aged over a decade. A young man not even thirty years old looked as haggard as a middle-aged man.

He didn't know who was targeting him, but he felt like everyone was targeting him.

Yet he didn't dare to casually agree to anyone's demands. After all, this was already his only bargaining chip. At the very least, he had to be sure he could save his own life before throwing this chip out.

And just as he was scratching his head in distress over this, a purple magic circle lit up in front of his office.

Following that, two tall, voluptuous girls dressed in school uniforms appeared.

"Good evening, Mr. Koizumi Koichi. I'm so sorry to disturb you this late."

Koizumi Koichi focused his gaze, and upon seeing the red-haired girl who had spoken, he inexplicably felt that she looked somewhat familiar.

However, even though he was a transmigrator, he wasn't a cheater like Gu Xiaoxiao, so he had never even read the banned manga High School DxD. He had only seen fan art of Rias and the others a long time ago.

Yes, standing right in front of Koizumi Koichi was none other than the heroine of High School DxD, the younger sister of the Underworld's Demon Lord Lucifer, and the eldest daughter of the Duke Gremory household of the 72 Pillar Devil Families, Rias Gremory.

The reason she came looking for Koizumi Koichi this time was that when classes started on Monday, she noticed her peerage member, Koneko Toujou, had not shown up at school.

After visiting Koneko Toujou's home, she found her lying fast asleep in bed, wearing a gaming helmet.

As a pure-blooded High-Class Devil of the Underworld, Rias immediately realized that Koneko Toujou's situation was not as simple as Akihiko Kayaba had claimed—that removing the helmet would cause brain death and turn her into a vegetable. Instead, her entire soul had directly left her body.

Even she was somewhat at a loss for what to do.

However, still thinking this was another one of Akihiko Kayaba's technological tricks, she used some of her own methods to track him down, only to be left completely dumbfounded.

She found Akihiko Kayaba, but just like Koneko Toujou, his body was already completely devoid of a soul.

Left with absolutely no other options, Rias could only come to Koizumi Koichi, hoping to ask him how on earth she could pull Koneko Toujou's soul back out.