The sky above the Town of Beginnings was the perfect, endless blue of a forgotten afternoon. It was a color that felt like hope, a digital promise of adventures yet to come. For me, it was also the color of a job almost finished.
My name is Yosuke Asakura. But in this world, for a few more hours at least, I am known as «Hunter».
I leaned against the cool stone of the central fountain, watching the final wave of beta testers revel in the last moments of this beautiful, temporary world. They laughed, compared loot, and boasted about their exploits, their voices a cheerful cacophony. I couldn't help but smile a little. Their joy was a testament to the world we had built. A world I helped create.
I was the youngest on Kayaba-sensei's development team. My life had been code and combat algorithms, motion-capture sessions using my kendo and martial arts training to make the sword skills feel real. This game, Sword Art Online, was my entire world for the past two years. And tomorrow, it would belong to everyone.
A soft, frustrated sigh cut through my thoughts. It wasn't the sound of a veteran player. It was the sound of someone utterly, completely lost.
I turned. A few feet away, a girl was staring at her open menu with a look of profound confusion. Her avatar was simple, with chestnut-brown hair tied back and warm, hazel eyes that were currently narrowed in concentration. She wore the standard starter cloth garments, utterly unremarkable except for the faint, determined set of her jaw.
Her finger hovered over the menu, poking at the air as if trying to figure out which invisible button to press.
"The confirmation is on the lower right," I said, my voice cutting through her frustration.
She jumped, startled, and turned to me. Her avatar's face flushed a light pink. "O-oh! Thank you! I knew that… I just… forgot."
I gave a casual shrug, playing the part of the helpful veteran. "Easy to do. The UI can be overwhelming at first. First full-dive game?"
She nodded, finally managing to equip a simple beginner's dagger. It appeared on her hip. "Is it that obvious? My brother gave me the NerveGear for my birthday. He said I shouldn't miss the launch."
"Your brother has good taste," I said, and meant it. "The name's Hunter. I've been around a while. You?"
"Koharu," she said, offering a small, grateful smile. "It's… amazing. It feels so real."
I looked around at the sprawling town, the Gothic spires cutting into that perfect blue sky. "Yeah," I said, a genuine warmth in my voice. "It really does."
For the next hour, I did something I hadn't done in the entire beta: I played a tour guide. I showed her how to navigate the menu, how to check her stats, how to identify safe zones. I pointed out the best low-level field areas for beginners. I was, in a way, doing one final quality assurance check. But it was more than that. Her wonder was infectious. She asked questions about the world itself—the lore of Aincrad, the design of the buildings—not just the mechanics. She saw the art, not just the code.
"You know so much," she said as we stood at the city's main gate, looking out at the grassy fields. "You must have been playing since the very first day."
"Something like that," I replied, a slight, wry smile on my face. I couldn't tell her the truth. That I knew the precise attack rotation of the boars in that field because I'd helped tune their AI. That the reason the grass felt soft underfoot was due to a haptic feedback algorithm I'd debugged for a month. "Just want to make sure you have a good first day tomorrow. Don't want you getting lost again."
She laughed, a light, pleasant sound. "I'll try not to. Thank you, Hunter-san. Really."
The system clock in the corner of my vision blinked. The beta shutdown was in ten minutes.
"It's almost time," I said. "The servers will go down for final launch prep. It was nice meeting you, Koharu."
"You too!" she said, her smile bright. "Maybe I'll see you tomorrow? In the real game, I mean."
"Yeah," I said, the word feeling strangely heavy. "Maybe you will."
I offered a final wave, and she did the same, her form beginning to glimmer with the soft light of a log-out sequence. I turned away, my own finger moving to the log-out button.
I never pressed it.
The world dissolved not into the familiar darkness of disconnection, but into a blinding, blood-red light.
It was a light that screamed wrongness. It was the color of a system error, of a critical failure. It was the color of panic.
The light coalesced above the central square, forming a massive, robed figure. A figure I knew better than my own reflection. The game's master. Kayaba Akihiko.
The cheerful noise of the crowd died instantly, replaced by a confused, then terrified, silence.
His voice boomed, devoid of all the warmth and passion I remembered from our meetings. It was cold, digital, and absolute.
He spoke the words that shattered ten thousand lives. The words about the death game. The words about how log out was impossible. The words about how death in the game meant death in the real world.
I stood frozen. The sounds of the crowd became a distant roar, a tidal wave of fear and disbelief crashing against me. I couldn't breathe. My heart wasn't beating; it was a frantic, trapped bird slamming against the walls of my ribs.
No. No. This isn't happening. This is a joke. A sick, twisted joke.
But I knew. I knew with the cold, certain horror of a developer. The system wasn't responding. The admin commands I tried to mentally input were met with a chilling, red «WARNING: ACCESS DENIED» prompt. Kayaba had locked us all out. He had locked me out.
The world I took pride in. The world I helped build. It was a slaughterhouse. And I had handed out the invitations.
My knees felt weak. I stumbled back against the fountain, the stone cold and unfeeling against my back. The guilt was a physical weight, crushing my chest. I wanted to scream. I wanted to vomit. I just stared at my hands—the hands that had written code for this prison.
Amidst the chaos, the crying, the screams of denial, a single, small voice cut through my personal hell.
"Hunter-san?"
I looked up.
There she was. Koharu. She wasn't crying. She was just pale, her eyes wide with a terror so profound it was almost calm. She was hugging herself, her knuckles white.
She took a hesitant step toward me through the crowd of panicking avatars. "It's… it's true, isn't it?" she whispered. "We can't get out."
All my knowledge, all my skill, felt utterly useless. I was the architect of this nightmare, and I was just as powerless as she was. The words that finally came out of my mouth were hoarse, choked with a shame I could barely contain.
"Yeah," I managed to say. "It's true. I'm… I'm so sorry."
I wasn't just apologizing for our situation. I was apologizing for my part in it. An apology she couldn't possibly understand.
She just nodded slowly, absorbing the end of the world. Her eyes focused on me, a tiny flicker of hope in the depths of her terror. "What do we do?"
Her question, simple and direct, shattered my paralysis. I didn't have the right to fall apart. Not when she was looking at me like that. Like I had an answer.
I pushed myself off the fountain, forcing my voice to steady. "We survive. That's the first thing. We need to get out of this square. It's going to become a madhouse."
I gestured for her to follow and began moving toward the city's main gate. The crowd was thickening, a river of despair flowing in all directions. We pushed through, two small figures against the tide.
Just outside the gate, the panic was thinner, replaced by a dazed confusion. Players stood motionless, staring at nothingness. And that's when I saw them.
Two players. One was a tall, lanky guy with messy black hair and a determined, if pale, face. He had the look of a beta tester—a certain familiarity in his stance. The other was a rougher-looking guy with a bandana and a scruffy beard, trying to rally a group of other confused-looking players. He was loud, full of bluster, but his eyes were scared.
The beta tester saw me first. His dark eyes flicked over my gear, my posture, and narrowed in recognition. He gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod. I see you.
The loud one, however, turned his attention to us. "Hey! You two! You look like you know what you're doin'! You guys beta testers?"
"Something like that," I said, my voice flat. My usual sarcasm was buried under a mountain of dread.
"The name's Klein! These are my… well, my friends from the real world. We're all stuck here together." He jabbed a thumb at the black-haired guy. "This guy's a beta tester too! Name's Kirito."
Kirito just nodded silently, his gaze shifting between me and Koharu, assessing, calculating.
"Hunter," I said. "And this is Koharu."
"We were just about to head out to the next field to try and grind some levels and Col before nightfall," Klein said, his bravado not quite hiding his fear. "Safety in numbers, right? You two should come with us!"
It was a good offer. A sane offer. For a normal player.
But I wasn't a normal player. I was a target. A developer who might be singled out. And my only priority was the terrified girl beside me. A large group was slow. It was noticeable. It was a liability.
Kirito seemed to be thinking the same thing. He shifted uncomfortably. "A large group will attract more attention from monsters," he said, his voice quiet. "It might be more dangerous."
I looked at Klein's friends. They were newbies, utterly green. I looked at Kirito, a fellow soloist. I looked at Koharu, who was watching me, waiting for my decision.
The weight of leadership I never asked for settled on my shoulders.
"He's right," I said, my voice firmer now. "A big group is clumsy. We'd spend more time protecting everyone than actually getting stronger." I met Klein's eyes. "It's a good plan, but not for us. I have to get her to safety. We're better off moving fast and quiet. A duo."
Klein looked disappointed but nodded in understanding. "I get it. Can't leave my guys behind either." He offered a gruff smile. "Well, good luck out there! Don't die!"
Kirito gave one last, long look. A look that said, I know what you are. Survive. Then he turned without another word and began walking down the path, a lone figure against the setting sun.
I turned to Koharu. The first day was over. The dream was dead. Now, the nightmare began.
"Stay close to me," I said, my voice low. "Don't engage anything unless I tell you to. Watch my back."
She nodded, her earlier confusion replaced by a steely resolve. She drew her beginner dagger. It looked pitifully small.
Together, we walked away from the city gates, away from the other players. The creator and the innocent, bound together in a cage of my own design.