Full Summary: Dudley has always been easily frustrated and when a language barrier prevents him from playing his new game, he promptly tosses out the game and his computer while in a snit. A curious Harry sneaks the discarded gaming equipment into his cupboard and promptly falls in love with the world inside Sword Art Online the first time he logs into the game. A distaste of knives and swords sees him taking up a Bow instead and an adventurer is born in the heart of a wizard when he slays his first Dungeon Monster. Pre-Hogwarts, Smart!Harry, Slytherinish!Harry, Shy!Harry, Stubborn!Harry, & Paternal!Klein.

Disclaimer: Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction.

Warnings: Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, and who knows what else.

AN: Like I did for Magic Online, the timelines of both SAO and HP were shifted in order to align the story line the way I wanted it to go for this story. HP's timeline was bumped forward three decades (meaning that Harry was born in the year 2010, orphaned in 2011, and due to go to Hogwarts in 2021 – though I did leave Dumbledore's personal timeline alone, so he's still old as dirt) and SAO's timeline was moved back a measly three years (Kirito born in 2005 and the players trapped in SAO in 2019).

I've also once again set Dudley's age as three years older than Harry; this is to make it more reasonable for Dudley to have gotten a NERDLES implanted at the start of the story since he would've only been a year younger than the cut off (those under thirteen being banned from having NERDLES implanted according to the SAO world rules). And while Vernon could probably spend any amount he wanted to get Dudley one early, I can't see a nine year old as being over looked while an overweight twelve year old might be. This also gave the Dursleys more time as a family together before Harry was thrust into their life and therefore more reason for them (Dudley in particular) to resent Harry's presence.

Next, all characters and players within the game [SAO] will speak Japanese (except in the instances where Harry or another Human Player initiates a conversation in English with a Player) and all dialogue in the story that is meant to represent spoken Japanese will be written in italics in order to distinguish it from Harry's spoken English – regardless of whose point of view is being used. As usual, I will limit the amount of actual Japanese used in the story so as not to butcher the language and what I do use will be simple keywords meant to add ambiance to the story.

Another change I made was to extend the beta trial out by a full 30 days; meaning that instead of just a single month of testing, there were two. This was to give Harry more than enough time to invest himself in the game instead of limiting him to a mere three weeks the original month would have left him with. I'm pretty certain I did the same thing in Magic Online but at the time it had slipped my mind that the Beta Test was only supposed to last a single month whereas this time the additional four weeks of testing were intentional and will mean that the Beta Testers got a few floors higher than the Eighth Floor they'd reached in canon before the end of the beta run as a result.

As usual, translations for any Japanese words and gaming acronyms/terminology used in each chapter will be provided at the end of each chapter for quick reference for those who need it and where it can be easily skipped over by those who don't. If that kind of thing annoys you, then you're more than welcome to close out this window and look for another story to read because I'm not going to stop doing it since it's something I've consistently done for all of my stories and because it helps me remember what everything means.

And lastly, I drew upon my extensively limited experiences with RPGs in order to write the 'game' portions of the story and based the 'game action sequences' upon my experiences in those games that I've played (drawing mostly from SIMS II, Fable: The Lost Chapters, Zork Nemesis, War Craft I-III, and multiple versions of Final Fantasy, Pokémon, Zelda, and Animal Crossing). I should also note that I'm a dedicated solo player and I have very little experience playing in a guild or a party (mostly because I'm a rather antisocial person by nature) and so any group battles may seem stilted since the only group experience I have comes from playing Final Fantasy where groups are a given even if it's just one person playing the entire group.

AN2: The plot line for this story was inspired by my story, Magic Online (the first SAO/HP crossover I wrote) and as such, there will be occasional instances where I reused a few plot-points from Magic Online for this story because I really liked that particular plot-point or because that plot-point made the most sense to me. So, for those of you who've read Magic Online before reading this, the bits and pieces you might recognize of that story in this story are there on purpose but I didn't steal them since they were mine to begin with since I am the original author of Magic Online.

AN3: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.

Rise of the Archer
Chapter One: Finders, Keepers

Wednesday, August 07, 2019 6:45 PM
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey

The relative peace of a nondescript suburban street filled with lot after lot of near-identical houses known as Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey of England would be broken shortly after the evening meal on the night of August seventh by the frustrated yell of an overweight preteen coming from Number Four. A few curtains would twitch in curiosity but most of the people who lived in the area just ignored the commotion since raised voices coming from Number Four were a frequent, and very annoying, occurrence.

"Argh! Stupid game! I hate you!"

Hidden inside of the boot cupboard that had been built beneath the stairs of Number Four, a nine year old Harry Potter glanced up at the ceiling of his unconventional room as he listened to his older cousin banging about in his bedroom upstairs. Long used to his cousin's frequent tantrums, Harry quickly lost interest in the commotion going on above his head and returned his gaze to the purloined storybook that he'd nicked from amongst the unwanted and mostly broken junk that filled his cousin's second bedroom.

His reading would be disturbed a second time when his heavyset cousin stomped down the stairs; each crashing footstep shaking loose a stream of plaster dust and the occasional spider that inevitably got all over Harry's hair, the book he'd been trying to read, and his bed. Letting out a huff of irritation, Harry carefully shooed the spiders away – because while Harry disliked the eight-legged arachnids, they did at least keep the other, less savory bugs (like roaches and flies) away – before he tipped the book upright to knock the dust free. He then slipped a folded piece of paper between the pages to mark his spot and tucked it under his pillow before he cleaned himself and the bed off.

He'd just remade his bed when his cousin stormed back up the stairs and knocked loose more dust and Harry growled under his breath because now he was going to have to clean everything up again. Harry was just reaching for the old worn out comforter on top of his bed so he could shake the dust off of it once more when his cousin stomped back down the steps yet again. More than a little annoyed by his cousin's stomping but also a bit curious as to what would drive his cousin to make multiple trips up and down the stairs, Harry cracked the door open to find out what was going on.

Harry wasn't the only one that had been disturbed by his cousin's current antics and the second Harry stuck his head out of his cupboard, he heard his uncle demand, "What's all that racket out there!?"

"I'm throwing away a bunch of stupid trash!" his cousin yelled in answer just before he stormed out through the open front door with an armful of cables, computer accessories, and game cases.

"Well, keep up the good work," his uncle bellowed back before he cranked up the volume on the television in order to drown out the sound of his cousin's thundering through the house.

Harry didn't know what surprised him more; the fact that his cousin appeared to be tossing out the new NerveGear that his [Dudley's] Aunt Marge had just bought him for his twelfth birthday last month or the fact that Uncle Vernon didn't seem to care that his son was tossing out the expensive device, all of its accessories, the vast collection of PC games that Dudley had been given through the years, and the actual computer. Then again, it was entirely possible that his uncle didn't realize just what it was that his cousin was throwing in the rubbish due to the fact that his cousin had just called the computer and gaming equipment 'trash'.

Ducking back into his cupboard, Harry carefully considered what he'd just learned and what he was going to do with that knowledge. Well, he knew he wasn't going to tattle on his cousin; that was a sure-fire way of getting himself in trouble because all of his relatives would call him a liar the moment he opened his mouth and then they would blame Harry for the stuff ending up in the trash. He also wasn't about to let Dudley know that he [Harry] knew that his cousin had just thrown the computer out either because then his cousin would use that to get Harry in trouble at some point.

So, that left Harry with just two options; ignore what he'd seen and heard so that he could pretend that he didn't know what had happened to the computer and gaming equipment or smuggle everything back into the house and pretend that he didn't know what had happened to it. It didn't take Harry long to decide that he would nick the stuff from the trash later that night so that he could play around with it. His cousin obviously didn't want the gaming equipment anymore and it would be a shame for the practically brand new NerveGear to rot at the city dump because his cousin couldn't appreciate it.

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to fetch everything until after his relatives had gone to bed, Harry set about clearing out the very back of his cupboard (where the ceiling of the cupboard sloped down to the floor at the bottom of the stairs) so he'd have a place to set the computer and gaming gear up once he got it back inside. Once he finished doing that, he began making a mental list of the things that he would need to hide everything so none of his relatives would see it if they happened to look inside of his cupboard (a very rare occurrence since they preferred to forget that Harry existed).

After finishing the list, there was nothing else for Harry to do but wait. In order to help pass the time while he waited for his relatives to go to bed, Harry contemplated his relatives.

The Dursley family was comprised of four individuals; Vernon Dursley, his wife Petunia Dursley, his son Dudley Dursley, and his older sister Marjorie 'Marge' Dursley.

Mr. Dursley was an ordinary man with an ordinary job who loved his ordinary wife and wonderfully ordinary son. Mrs. Dursley was a perfect housewife who thought she had landed the perfect husband, knew she'd given birth to the world's most perfect boy, and she was perfectly content to spy upon her less than perfect neighbors in order to spread perfectly scandalous gossip about town. Dudley was just Dudley and he was a spoiled brat that cared for nothing and thought of no one but himself. And Ms. Dursley swore her brother's family was the best family one could have and took pleasure in gloating over how fine a boy her nephew was turning out to be.

Over all, they were a perfectly normal sort of family that was perfectly satisfied with their perfectly normal life.

Or they would have been if not for unwanted presence of one Harry James Potter spoiling their perfect life.

Harry was the only child of Mrs. Dursley's deceased (and long estranged) younger sister who had been dumped on the Dursley's doorstep in the middle of the night when he was a baby shortly after his parents had died. Instead of treasuring the only living link to her only sister, Mrs. Dursley resented the presence of her nephew and the burden his arrival had supposedly placed on her family. She also resented the fact that his very existence had utterly destroyed the thin veneer of normalcy that had been her life prior to little Harry's unexpected arrival on her doorstep.

Unknown to young Harry, the main reason why his aunt resented him so much was due to the fact that he'd been born with a rare ability; he'd been born with the ability to use magic, like his mother and father before him. That ability made him a freak in the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Dursley. As such, the two adults went to great lengths to ensure that Harry never knew about his magic lest he get ideas and actually use his magic on them.

Oh, they never beat him or anything like that; in fact, they went out of their way to avoid touching little Harry if at all possible. They feared that they might contract some horrible disease if they were constantly coming into physical contact with the boy and so left him alone.

No, the methods they used to keep Harry in line were almost completely hands-off.

Instead, they focused on keeping Harry as downtrodden as possible without driving him to extreme emotions; shunning and snubbing him while making certain that he knew and understood that he was an unwanted burden whose parents were worthless drunks that had died in a car crash that they had caused. They also made many repeated attempts to smother his intelligence and imagination; though all they had managed to do was to drive Harry to go to great lengths in order to hide his intellect and creativity from them in order to avoid punishment.

They had, however, succeeded in making Harry's childhood rather miserable and lonely.

They only ever gave him ill-fitting, second-hand clothes that used to belong to his older, fatter cousin. They gave him the bare minimum to eat at each meal and periodically sent him to bed without supper. They had stuffed him in the cupboard under the stairs rather than giving him an actual bedroom. They never allowed him to join them on family outings nor did they let him participate in holiday activities. And they went out of their way to hide his very existence; treating him like a dirty little secret that would ruin their lives if their neighbors knew that he existed, let alone lived with them.

Not that anyone really paid all that much attention to Harry in the first place. In fact, most everyone in the neighborhood consistently ignored Harry for some inexplicable reason unless the Dursleys brought Harry to their attention and since they never did (because they didn't want anyone to know about Harry's existence), no one really noticed him. Even his teachers and the other students at school would mostly ignore him unless he was standing right in front of them and even then, they always seemed so surprised and confused to see him since they never remembered him after the fact.

Most of his teachers and classmates even forgot his name on a regular basis despite the fact that they saw him nearly every day that school was in session.

Harry had learned to take advantage of the rather large blind spot the teachers and students had for him very early on and often studied ahead in those classes he enjoyed. He occasionally skipped the classes he had no interest in or avoided the classes of those teachers he disliked and because the teachers ignored him, he never got caught skiving off of lessons. He would then spend the time he should have been in class in the school library reading books or in the computer lab on the computers looking up stuff or playing around instead.

He also felt no guilt in taking advantage of the fact that the staff ignored him to get double breakfasts and lunches during the school year. The Dursleys didn't starve him, per se, but they certainly restricted the amount of food that they gave him at each meal and his aunt never bothered to pack him a lunch on school days. Nor did she allow him to pack one for himself. So, the extra meals he got from the school's cafeteria allowed him to get his fill and whatever he didn't finish during the allotted meal times, he always saved for snacks (that was especially true of any fresh fruit that was served).

The sound of Dudley going to bed (which involved his cousin loudly yelling goodnight from the top of the stairs) drew Harry out of his thoughts at that moment and a quick check of the time (using an old watch he'd filched from Dudley's second bedroom) let him know that he only had to wait another hour before his aunt and uncle went to bed. It would then be another ten to twenty minutes after that before he could start sneaking Dudley's computer and gaming equipment back into the house since he'd need to give his relatives plenty of time to fall asleep.

Now that Dudley was no longer knocking dust free from the underside of the stairs, Harry shook the dust from himself and then spent the next fifteen minutes carefully shaking the plaster dust from his covers before he remade his so-called bed. He then used the little hand-held broom and dustpan set that his aunt had grudgingly given him a few years ago to clean up the floor so that he wouldn't track the dust through the house when he went to get the stuff from the rubbish bin and get in trouble for dirtying up the house; he'd empty the dustpan out in the morning when he got up.

Unfortunately, that didn't take him all that long to do and he was once against left cooling his heels while he waited for his aunt and uncle to go to bed. At that point, Harry turned out the light (so as to fool his aunt and uncle into thinking that he too had gone to bed) before he laid down on his bed and stared at the glowing display of his second-hand watch through the scuff marks on the clear cover that protected the watch's face. After another ten minutes had gone by, Harry couldn't help but start thinking about his life at the Dursleys again.

This time, he found himself focusing on the fact that they tended to blame him for everything that went wrong; even if there was no possible way for him to have been involved. Like the time that Uncle Vernon had blamed him for the flat tire he'd gotten pulling out of the drive. That wasn't even counting the numerous times that Dudley had gone out of his way to get Harry into trouble for things he [Dudley] had done; such as breaking the ugly old vase that had been gifted to Aunt Petunia on her wedding day by her mother.

Then there were the four cardinal rules that Harry had to follow lest he get himself in trouble for breaking them. Those rules were:

Never speak unless spoken to.
Never ask questions.
Never show any emotions.
And above all else, never, ever speak of anything unnatural (like magic or fairytales).

So long as the rules were obeyed and his chores were completed on time, the Dursleys ignored Harry (provided there was no funny business going on that could be blamed on him).

Punishments were always limited to 'time out' in his cupboard so that he could 'reflect on his poor behavior' or extra chores 'to put his idle hands to use' but that hardly made being punished for something that hadn't been his fault any more enjoyable. Of course, insisting that he was innocent never helped matters either and the moment he tried, he got in more trouble for being 'argumentative'. It didn't take long for Harry to learn to just silently accept his 'punishments' for his supposed misbehavior in order to avoid having said punishments doubled for 'back talking'.

All in all, it made for a sad and lonely existence for one Harry Potter. He didn't complain, even though he had no idea what it was that he'd done to make his relatives hate him so much (completely unaware of his magical heritage), because any complaints that he might have voiced would have gotten him in trouble. He also couldn't remember a time when his life hadn't been the way it was now.

That didn't mean he was happy with his lot in life.

In fact, he hated living with the Dursleys (even if he didn't actively hate his relatives – he just didn't like them all that much). He couldn't bring himself to consider the Dursley's house home; not after he'd reached the age where he was old enough to realize just how unfair it was for his relatives to treat him the way that they did. When he'd been younger, he used to wish that some long lost relative would come and take him away from the Dursleys but he'd recently come to the conclusion that no one was going to save him from his lonely existence.

No, if he was going to be saved, Harry was going to have to save himself.

Unfortunately, his current options were rather limited due to his age and so he was pretty much stuck with the Dursleys for at least the next eight or nine years. And wasn't that just a depressing thought?

Before he could get too wrapped up in negativity due to the unpleasant truths that were his life, a loud snore cut through the night and let him know that his uncle had fallen asleep. He wouldn't have to worry about whether or not his aunt was asleep as well though due to the fact that she slept with ear plugs in her ears ever since Dudley had finally started sleeping through the night around age eight so that Uncle Vernon's overly loud snoring no longer disturbed her sleep.

A trill of excitement shot through Harry at that point; it was time to go rescue Dudley's poor mistreated computer and gaming equipment.

It would take him close to an hour and eight nerve wracking trips through the dark house to collect all of the computer and gaming equipment from outside and carry back inside to his cupboard. Another two trips would net him all of the materials that he would need to hide the reassembled computer from casual inspection. Setting everything up would take him an hour and half and most of that time had been spent rigging a thick curtain (made from an old blanket, a bunch of safety pins, and a broken broom handle) over the entire door to prevent any light from being seen through the cracks.

After securing the makeshift curtain over his door, Harry left his closet one last time to return the tools he'd borrowed to fix up his cupboard back to where they belonged so they wouldn't be missed. On his way back to his room, he grabbed several alcohol wipes from the first aide kit so he could clean the gaming equipment before he even turned it on (Dudley had gotten everything sticky with his tendency to snack on gooey sweets while at the computer). When he returned to his cupboard, he slid the blanket into place over his door and began taking care of his purloined computer.

Once he'd cleaned everything, Harry opened up the spare Nerve Direct Linkage Environment System (NERDLES) that Uncle Vernon had purchased (in case the one that had been implanted in Dudley malfunctioned at some point) and stuck it on the back of his neck at the base of his skull (as shown in the diagram of the package); completely unaware that the device was supposed to be surgically implanted. He winced as he felt the needles of the device pierce his skin but soon forgot about the pain as he slipped on the helmet unit of the NerveGear and powered on the device.

The device ran through a brief diagnosis of his current physical, mental, and emotional state before he launched the basic tutorial on how to use the equipment when the option was provided. Next he ran through a step that the system called calibration; the system requesting that he physically touch various parts of his body in order to allow the gear to learn how much he had to move his hands to reach each part; which would allow the system to accurately and smoothly portray the sensation of movement while he was playing the various games.

While he was focused on the tutorial and system calibration, Harry never noticed his long dormant magic wake up in response to the pain of sticking himself with the NERDLES. After healing the minor damage done by the needles, his magic then drew the NERDLES into his body in response to his unconscious desire to have the device in place and promptly integrated it into his spinal cord. Once in place, his magic enhanced the device's effectiveness instead of shorting it out like it should have the moment his magic had come in contact with the active technology – not surprising since the device hadn't actually been activated by a surgical technician upon successful implantation.

As soon as the system calibrations were completed, Harry disengaged the NerveGear and sat up so that he could load up a game. It was sheer happenstance that the game disk inside of the computer was the Beta Test of Ken no Sekai; the very game that had frustrated Dudley enough that he'd tossed out the computer. The reason for Dudley's frustration was immediately apparent the moment that Harry put the NerveGear back on and activated the game link; the gaming menu (and therefore the game's instructions) was in Japanese rather than English and Dudley didn't know any Japanese.

Harry didn't know any Japanese either but that didn't bother him. Nor did his inability to read what was on the screen deter him from playing the game. It did, however, mean that it took him close to three hours to muddle through the start menu in order to set up an account, create a game Avatar, and save his progress. Sadly, because it had taken so long to set everything up, it meant that he wouldn't have time to actually play the game that night. Not if he wanted to get any sleep that night so he'd be able to get up and do his chores in the morning.

It was with great reluctance that Harry exited the game and shut down the computer so that he could tuck it back behind the cardboard screen slash door that he'd made to hide the gaming console. The last thing he did before he went to sleep was pull the blanket covering his door over to the side where it would be out of the way just in case his relatives got up before he woke up and decided to check on him for some reason.

The next morning, Harry had to carefully mask his emotions and control his reactions when Dudley changed his mind about tossing out his computer only to find that the rubbish bins had been emptied by the trash truck an hour before he'd dragged himself out of bed. His cousin had promptly thrown a major tantrum about his gaming equipment being lost but had been unable (more like unwilling) to tell his parents why he was so mad; after all, even he would get in trouble for throwing out the expensive gift the way he did.

He couldn't even pin the loss on Harry this time because his parents had sent Harry to his cupboard immediately after supper and, as far as the family knew, had remained in his cupboard all night long – he'd long ago learned to not openly disobey them to avoid extra punishments.

It was sheer irony that, for once, Harry actually had been to blame.

Not that he was about to let his relatives know that.

All day long, Harry kept his head down and silently did his chores without complaint in order to avoid drawing any attention to him. It worked rather well thanks to Aunt Petunia distracting Dudley with a freshly made chocolate cake and Uncle Vernon promising to get Dudley that racing bike he'd really wanted but hadn't gotten for his birthday before he left for work. The timely arrival of Dudley's little gang of friends just after lunch also helped since they dragged Dudley off to run around about the neighborhood getting into who knew what kind of trouble for most of the afternoon.

By the time he slipped into his cupboard after washing the supper dishes, Harry was wound tight with stress from the constant need to keep his emotions in check to hide the theft (more like rescue) of Dudley's computer. At the same time, he was more than a little excited by the prospect of actually getting to play Ken no Sekai as soon as his relatives were asleep. Sure, he could have turned on the game as soon as he closed his cupboard door but doing so was just asking for trouble since there was always a very slim chance that his aunt or uncle would check on him before they went to bed.

They had long used random surprise inspections of his cupboard to catch him doing something against the rules and while the number of inspections they sprang on him per year had dwindled down to almost nothing, they hadn't stopped entirely since none of the Dursleys actually trusted Harry.

The instant Harry heard Uncle Vernon start snoring around ten-thirty, he scrambled out of bed so that he could turn on the computer and load the game. As soon as the software started loading, he wasted no time in jamming the NerveGear helmet onto his head before he settled back down on his bed with the top of his head pointed towards the smallest part of his cupboard where the computer was located. He'd barely gotten comfortable before the heads up display notified him that the software had finished loading and he eagerly dove into the world of Ken no Sekai.

The game activated just seconds later and the moment Harry loaded the Avatar he'd created the previous night, he found himself transported into an enormous plaza that sat in the middle of a large, sprawling city that he would later learn was called Hajimari no Machi. It would take him a couple of minutes to adjust to the fact that it was the middle of the day in the game after the darkness of night in his cupboard. The second he'd adjusted to the abrupt change and got a good look around him, a large grin bloomed across Harry's face as he spun back and forth in an attempt to take everything in.

The most notable features of the plaza (aside from the fact that it was large enough to hold thousands of people) were the large clock tower topped by a bell, a rectangular platform surrounded by four columns (what he'd later learn was called a Teleport Gate) sitting in front of the clock tower, and the towering wall slash covered walkway that bracketed the plaza on both sides. To the north of the plaza, sat a huge castle or church that looked kind of foreboding to the nine year old while off to the south, he thought he saw the light shimmering off a large pond or possibly a small lake.

After a couple of minutes spent drinking in the view inside of the plaza, Harry glanced up at the clock face of the tower to check the time (so he could check how long he'd been there already) before he darted out of the plaza in order to explore the city. As soon as he set foot in the city proper, Harry stumbled to a stop and gaped as he took in the rambling streets, mismatched buildings, brightly colored awnings, and semi-crowded streets. In short, the place looked nothing like the cookie-cutter rows of houses that filled the neighborhood that his aunt and uncle lived in and that alone made it remarkable.

It was love at first sight.

A laugh of pure joy was torn from Harry's throat as he gave a little hop-skip-jump of excitement before he bolted down the nearest street so he could explore the wondrous city that was spread out for miles in front of him; stopping only to check the time every now and then. It didn't take long for Harry to get lost as he blindly explored the city but he didn't care; he was far too busy trying to take in every little detail of the vibrant world around him. He also neither noticed nor cared that the people around him (both the other Players and the NPCs) all spoke Japanese rather than English.

Before he knew it, Harry had spent just over three hours wandering through the city and it was with great reluctance that he saved and exited the game so that he could get some sleep. He would spend an equal amount of time further exploring the city every night for the next six days as well. Some people might have found it boring to spend well over twenty hours just wandering about through a game-world village when there was an actual game to play but Harry was smitten with the city and wanted to see every last nook and corner.

His diligence in satisfying his curiosity would also net him his first in-game Skill when he unlocked an Unarmed Skill called Navigation. It would actually take him a week to figure out that the new Skill was an actual Game Skill and that it was a kind of mapping function that let him map out towns and Dungeons within the game.

The higher his mastery of the Skill, the more ground he could 'see' within the map without walking over every inch of ground. And all it took to earn Skill Points for that particular Skill was for him to walk around and explore different towns and Dungeons. Harry wasn't really all that worried about gaining Skills or Skill Points at the moment though; he was far too wrapped up in seeing the bright new world that he'd stepped into.

After getting his fill of directionless exploring out of his system for the moment upon ending his seventh consecutive visit to Hajimari no Machi, Harry finally turned his attention towards figuring out how to play the actual game.

Translations: Japanese to English

Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings
Ken no Sekai – Sword Art Online

Game Terminology:

Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play
Dive – short for FullDive
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by monsters (or other players)
FullDive – the use of technology to fully immerse one's conscience in a virtual reality
NERDLES – Nerve Direct Linkage Environment System (a surgically implanted chip that allows the FullDive system to interface with the brain – the surgically implanted part may or may not be canon as it was something I thought seemed more logical than it just being part of the interface helmet)
NerveGear – equipment created by Kayaba Akihiko (Argus); allows the user to enter FullDive
NPC – Non-Player Character (basically a computer generated character)
Player – an in-game character that is 'played' by a human
Player Menu – the interface through which a player interacts with the game
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in-game skill

Notes:

For those of you who have read my other HP/SAO crossover 'Magic Online', you will have probably recognized quite a few bits and pieces of this chapter from the first chapter of that story and the reason for that is because the plot that I used for this story was heavily based off of the plot that I used for that story. This story is not a carbon copy of Magic Online though and any similarities will quickly vanish since the plot for this story rapidly deviated from the plot of my other story. The differences should be fairly evident in how Dudley's computer ended up in the trash in this story which was markedly different than how it had been thrown out in MO.

AN: I had originally hoped to update one of my older WIPs today as one final update of 2017 but I was unable to get any of them finished in time; though I did make progress on some of them. So, because I still wanted to update this weekend, I decided to post this story a week ahead of schedule. Now, just because I'm posting a new story, doesn't mean I'm going to neglect the stories I've been working on. I won't. In fact, this story has enough chapters prepped and ready for posting that I won't have to worry about writing anything new for a while on it.

Though I will work on it between my other stuff because I want to finish it before I run out of chapters to post for you.

In any case, I intend to post one chapter per week on this story in order to both set a regular update schedule AND to let everyone know I'm still alive in between the updates on my other stories. Once I have chapters ready for my other stories (which I'm still working on), those chapters will be posted in place of the weekly updates for this story instead of in addition to this story just to make doubly certain that I have enough stuff to post a chapter a week for the entire year.

Of course, there may still be times when I miss a weekend post or two... (I have issues keeping track of schedules and dates) but I will make a solid effort to miss as few as possible!

In any case, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my new story and hope to see you back when I post the second chapter next weekend! Until then, have a HAPPY NEW YEAR! ~ Jenn