Thursday, November 06, 2019 4:52 AM
Harry was vibrating with suppressed excitement.
He'd been awake for nearly two hours counting down the minutes until the live version of SAO went online. He'd had his system set up for a half an hour now and was just waiting for five o'clock to arrive so that he could turn his purloined Nerve Gear on, start the game software, and Dive back into the world he saw as his true home. Less than eight minutes remained until the designated launch time and Harry had to suppress a squeal of excitement lest he wake the Dursleys. The only regret he had was that the opening day had fallen on a school day; which meant that he'd only have an hour and a half of uninterrupted play before his aunt would expect him to be up to make breakfast for the family.
Still, ninety minutes of blissful time spent in Aincrad would be ninety minutes of time well spent as far as Harry was concerned.
Only five minutes left now. Harry felt his cheeks start to ache due to the wide grin he was sporting as he clicked on the desktop shortcut to the game in order to let the software start loading while his entire being filled with anticipation. He briefly wondered if he would run into any of the other Beta Testers he'd played alongside during the six weeks he'd spent exploring the beta version of the game during the short amount of time he had that morning to play before he shrugged and promptly turned his thoughts back to the actual game. It really didn't matter if he ran into any of them or not.
It wasn't like he'd made friends with any of the other testers.
That brief bit of internal speculation had taken up another two minutes of time and Harry was pleased to see that there were less than three minutes remaining before he could go home. He activated the Nerve Gear and checked to make certain everything else was set (testing the cables and connectors for loose connections) before he put the helmet on and twisted around to lay down on his mattress; taking the time to get himself comfortable. Taking a deep breath, he watched the clock on virtual display of the helmet's screen slowly count down the final seconds before he whispered, "Link start."
An explosion of colors rushed before his eyes and then the Never Gear was syncing the new game software to his brain; testing each of his five senses and confirming his calibration settings. In less than two minutes, he was logging into the game and choosing to use his Beta Test character rather than starting over from scratch with a new character. The welcome screen flashed at him for a split second before an array of blue filled his vision as he was transported into the game where he soon found himself standing in the middle of a large stone courtyard in Hajimari no Machi instead of in the Fukkatsu no Heya as expected wearing his character's default outfit of brown pants, a brown and tan long sleeve shirt, leather boots, and a leather chest plate.
Harry didn't care about the slight deviation from his normal game-play routine though; he was just happy to be home.
Dozens of people began appearing on all sides in flashes of blue light and Harry quickly slipped out of the courtyard in order to avoid getting trampled on by the any of the other nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety-nine Players that had purchased the game. He was leisurely walking through one of the many market places that littered the city when he was nearly run over by a familiar black haired man wearing brown pants, long sleeved dark blue shirt, and leather armor that he briefly recalled seeing once or twice during the Beta Test.
He'd never actually been introduced to the other guy though and felt no need to chase after him; especially after he had noticed another man with long pinkish red hair wearing dark brown pants, a white shirt, and leather armor chasing after him. Harry didn't need any trouble when he'd only just arrived and had so little time to reacquaint himself with the world that had become his home.
Heading to one of the less crowded market plazas, Harry found an out of the way bench where he wouldn't be bothered and took a few minutes to scan through the Menu and check out his Stats. He was a little sad to find that his character had been reset to level one (from level twenty-three) and that his Skill Points dropped down to one third of what they'd been at the end of the testing period but he didn't stay down for long. He was at least thankful that he'd kept his final skill set since it would have been a real pain to have to unlock each of them again; completely unaware that his acquired Skills should have been completely erased and the number of open Skill slots available limited to six until he unlocked more through the game.