This story is told in Eren's point of view unless stated otherwise.

Sword Art Online.

The new Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game that took the world by storm. With the help of a virtual reality helmet named Nerve Gear, the system is able to access the part of the brain that controls all five senses within the body, thus interrupting the signals and successfully transferring the player right into the world of the game, allowing them to control and play as their avatar as if it were all real.

It seemed like a dream come true. Even the fact that there would only be ten thousand copies released at first didn't deter the obsessive gamers from all across the globe from gathering and praying they would get their hands on one of those precious copies of the game and its software. Everyone wanted to play. Everyone wanted to escape into the world that is Sword Art Online.

I was one of the lucky few. On Octomber 31st, 2022, I managed to get my hands on the last copy available in Germany, much to the ridicule of many of the more advanced gamers. I didn't care. I had saved up for months for this game, camped outside Gamer's Hut for almost three days. I thought I was so lucky; the last copy.

But when something seems too good to be true, that's because it usually is. Within three hours of the game's start, the creator of the entire endorsement, Akihiko Kayaba, summoned all ten thousand players into the town square of the first floor. Some people were already complaining about the lack of the 'log out' feature. I thought it was just some sort of bug, I didn't think anything of it when I noticed it myself.

But then Akihiko announced that it was no bug and it was very much intentional. He told us all that he had fixed the Nerve Gear with a feature that, if interrupted in anyway, would send very strong microwaves through the centre of the brain, thus killing the wearer instantly if the Nerve Gear was to be removed. When asked how we were supposed to log out then, he answered with what we were all thinking, but were too afraid to acknowledge.

We had to win.

On each of the one hundred floors that made up SAO, there was one boss that, if defeated, would lead to the next floor. If we somehow managed to make our way up to the top floor, clearing the bosses one by one, we would all be able to escape the game. But there was a catch, as there always is. Not only were our relatives prevented from interfering with the Nerve Gear, but if our health points bar hit zero within the game, the Nerve Gear would send off the same microwaves mentioned before, killing us for real.

To prove how serious he was about all this, Akihiko announced that two hundred and thirteen people had already died because of their family's ignorance.

This was no longer a game. This was all very much real.

We now all had two choices; live and win, or lose and die. We had to fight to live. I already knew my choice the moment I felt the sudden change within the games very coding, within my artificial body, now my real body for the time being.

It's been eighteen months since Akihiko announced the life and death game that had become of SAO. I had heard along the lines that the front-liners, players and guilds who teamed up and fought against the floor's bosses, had managed to make their way to almost the seventy-fifth floor. I was beyond impressed. But despite all their hard work, there were still players stuck as far down as the tenth floor.

Clearing the bosses, opening up new floors, that was one thing. But those of us who didn't have the skills or even the motivation to strengthen ourselves enough to be able to fight our way through the floors were stuck as far as our skills could take us. I considered myself lucky to have made it as far as I had, though I wasn't all too complacent with my solid place on the fifteenth floor.

It was nice here though. The Nerve Gear did a fine job in making everything seem so real. Sometimes I forgot I was in a game fighting for my life; that I had a home and a family to get back too. But as the months wore on and the front-liners climbed higher and higher, while I still grinded and grinded but never seemed to get anywhere, I started to think of how I could make this place my home; how I could make the imminent, permanent stay seem bearable.

I was growing restless though. There was only so much one could do by themselves before they were begging and screaming for some kind of help; some kind of hero.