Am I the only one streaming Sword Art Online on the entire internet?

"20 days! Although it has taken 20 days to get to this point, we still want to convey this message to everyone: We must defeat the boss, go to the second level, and tell our companions who are still waiting in the Town of Beginnings that this death game is not insurmountable! We will be able to clear it one day! This is the duty of us top players who have come here!"

"Am I right, guys!"

The murmurs subsided, replaced by waves of cheers. The words were beautifully spoken, flawlessly so. Yet, such beautiful, such righteous words left Solin with a strange sense of unreality.

But in the midst of this excited atmosphere, where everyone was eager to rush into the maze area and fight the kobold boss Ilfan, a discordant voice suddenly emerged.

"Wait a minute, knight. Before that, we need to sort things out first, otherwise I don't have time to play these friendship games with you guys."

XII. Operations Meeting (I)

"Kirito, please translate what this fxcking guy fxcking said to me, thanks."

Sorin coldly observed the cactus that had suddenly appeared, then whispered in Kirito's ear and asked.

"Wait a minute, Knight. Before that, let's clarify that matter first, otherwise I don't have time to play these friendship games with you guys." Kirito thought for a moment and translated the cactus-like Japanese with a Kansai accent for Sorin, but he was also a little confused by the guy's words, "What is he referring to?"

Of course, the same question also lingered in Diabel's mind as he was giving his speech.

"What do you mean by 'that thing'? Anyway, I welcome any opinions, but please state your name." Diabel asked politely, trying his best to maintain his composure.

"Hmph, my name is Tooth King." The cactus introduced itself, then scanned everyone present with its small but sharp eyes. "There are at least five or ten people here who should come out and apologize."

"Apologize? Who's apologizing to whom?" Diabel spread his hands with great composure, pretending not to know.

"Hey, do we even need to spell it out? Of course, those bastards who participated in the closed beta should apologize to the two thousand people who died before. Those bastards hoarded everything, which is why nearly two thousand people died in just one month. Don't you all agree?"

The plaza, which had been buzzing with discussion, suddenly fell silent, with only the background music played by the NPCs audible. Just then, a sudden voice broke the heavy silence.

"This is what you call someone who's bad at games seeing everyone as a cheater. This guy's thinking is amazing."

"Hey! You over there, what did you say?" Ya Wang glared at Solin, who had suddenly stood up, but he couldn't understand the Chinese Solin had just spoken.

"Kirito, translate for him... I forgot you can't understand it either." Sorin was about to turn around and find his full-time translator, but then realized that Kirito probably couldn't understand his rant either. "Never mind, I'll just use my real English."

[The fake English is so convincing!]

[This guy's tone...it's inexplicably unpleasant.]

[Suolin: Whether you'll get it appraised or not, I'm going to argue, I'm going to argue!]

Solin's idea was simple: someone had to step forward and eliminate this risk factor, otherwise, if this guy suddenly turned against them and became a double agent while they were fighting the boss, the entire RAID might be wiped out.

On the other hand, he also wanted to stand up and speak up for the closed beta testers, since there was one such closed beta tester in his team.

"You think the closed beta testers are taking away resources that should belong to the majority, right, you guy called Tooth King?" After saying this, Solin noticed that Tooth King and Diabel standing below still looked completely bewildered.

"I'm curious about the educational level of the players in this game. Which of you can keep up with the simultaneous translation?" He turned around awkwardly, couldn't help but complain, and then asked.

"It's just that your accent is different from most Japanese people's English accents." Asuna looked at the embarrassed Sorin, thought for a moment and decided to stand up, then repeated what Sorin had just said.

"Hey kid, are you here to stand up for those damned beta testers?" Ya Wang looked at Sorin and Asuna with some displeasure. "Those bastards who started playing from the beta rushed out of the starting town the day this crappy game started, leaving those nine thousand bewildered newbies there unattended. They hoarded all the easy monster-hunting areas and lucrative quests, only caring about getting stronger, all while pretending to be innocent. Now, there are definitely some old foxes among them hiding their beta tester identities, thinking they can get a piece of the pie in the boss battles. What I'm saying is, if these people don't stand up, kneel down, apologize, and bring out all the money and items they've earned to use in this battle, I will never become their ally and entrust my life to them!"

He spoke at length and fluently, but Asuna ran into trouble when she tried to summarize his words in English because he spoke so fast. This meant that Sorin still didn't immediately understand what the King of Fang had said, and once again uttered that embarrassing line in a slightly louder voice.

"Asuna, please translate what this fxcking guyfxcking said to me, thx."

"..."

Now everyone understood what Sorin was saying. They looked at Sorin with a mixture of surprise and bewilderment, including Diabel and the King of Fang, who were standing in the center.

"So please speak slowly in relatively standard Japanese without much of an accent, Mr. Ya Wang. My Japanese is really not good, please bear with me. Thank you very much." This time, Solin used a slightly more polite tone, along with his extremely broken Japanese.

[This line from the host has provided me with a year's worth of laughs.]

【666】

[The idiot gifted 2 rockets to the elegant Mr. Sorin]

Ya Wang paused for a moment, then gritted his teeth and repeated what he had just said, word by word. At this moment, his gaze toward Solin was filled with rage; if it were possible to take action within the city, he would probably be rushing toward Solin's face right now.

"To be honest, your argument is more in line with what most people think, and I understand you quite well. However, there are a few blind spots that I don't know if you've noticed." Solin tried to soften his tone as much as possible, since arguing at this point was completely unnecessary.

"Always remember this: a real idiot will first lower your IQ to his level, then use his extensive experience in the field to defeat you. So at this time, you must not get excited, you must keep your IQ steady, and then try to reason with him." He said this to the audience in the live broadcast room, in Chinese, "If we don't deal with this risk factor, it would be a real waste if something goes wrong in the boss battle later."

"I'd like to hear what kind of ivory can come out of your dog mouth, you who speaks for closed beta testers." Tooth King stared intently at Solin, his tone still unfriendly. "Or are you a closed beta tester yourself, and now you're showing off like a big shot?"

“First of all, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the saying, ‘Even the best swimmers drown.’ At least for now, the proportion of closed beta testers who have died unexpectedly is far higher than that of so-called newbies. Those who haven’t mastered their skills have often died due to carelessness and outdated experience.” Solin explained as patiently as possible, trying to soothe Ya Wang’s agitated emotions. “Although I don’t know how many of you here are closed beta testers, in a life-or-death battle like this, anyone would fight with all their might.”

Just as Suolin was trying his best to calm himself down and talk to Ya Wang about the principles, another abrupt voice rang out.

Can I say something?

XIII. Operations Meeting (II)

Solin glanced down and saw a tall figure emerge from the left side of the crowd. He was about 1.9 meters tall, with a completely shaved head and chocolate-colored skin. At least, Solin's first thought upon seeing this person was that he resembled some other dark-skinned, bald guy who would appear and say "sorry I'm late" and sell for 350 silver dollars.

“My name is Agil, Mr. Fang Wang. You mean that because the closed beta testers didn’t take care of the new players, resulting in a large number of new players dying, they must be held responsible and apologize and compensate, right?”

"Yeah...yes!" Ya Wang seemed momentarily intimidated by the black man who was significantly larger than Solin, and his voice lost some of its confidence. But he recovered in the next second. "If they hadn't stood by and watched people die, how could those nearly two thousand people have died? Those were all veterans who had played other online games before! If they had been willing to share these resources, there would be ten times more people here now, and they would definitely have all broken through to the second or even third level!"

"So, it seems only someone with a more intimidating appearance can keep this kind of clown in check? The one I randomly picked looked pretty much like him..." Sorin muttered to himself as he leaped down from the stands, landing next to Agil and Fang King. "So, what's this... Teferi's opinion?"

"Honestly, I admire your courage to stand up and speak at this time, Thousand Swordsman Sorin Markov. But to refute Mr. Ya Wang's remarks, you need some solid evidence." Agil nodded approvingly to Sorin, who had jumped down, then pulled out a small parchment-covered notebook from his pocket and waved it at Ya Wang twice. "Leaving aside experience and items, they do provide intelligence. You've had this guidebook before, haven't you? It was given away for free at the item shop in the village ahead."

That was Argo's strategy guide. Sorin had seen something like that before and even picked up a copy for free, of course. Incidentally, Argo, the self-proclaimed most astute information broker, knew that Sorin wasn't a closed beta player, and the only price she paid for this information was helping Sorin pay off half the cost of the [Enlightened One's Katana], which was 1,000 kol.

"So what if I took it? So what?" Ya Wang suddenly realized something, and this time his rebuttal was not as confident as before.

"But you have to consider that at this time, the only ones who could possibly provide this information to the players are the closed beta testers." Agil said, then suddenly turned his gaze to the crowd and continued in his booming voice, "Do you all understand? The information exists, yet so many people still died. I think the reason is that they thought they were experienced veterans, using the standards of other online games to judge SAO, which led them astray. Now is not the time to hold the closed beta testers accountable; this meeting will determine whether we will repeat the same mistakes."

"So my reasoning just now makes sense. And what's with that weird title?" Sorin stepped forward at this moment, picking up where Agil left off. "As I just said, whether you're a beta tester or a regular player, there shouldn't be any barriers between you at this time. Otherwise, when you're trying to defeat the boss, you'll only fail because you're not on the same page, or even get wiped out."

“That’s right. Mr. Ya Wang, I understand what you’re saying. I’ve also faced dangers several times in the unknown wilderness, and it wasn’t easy for me to get here. But now we should listen to Mr. Agil and Mr. Sorin the Thousand Swordsman and focus on moving forward!” Diabel stepped in to smooth things over. “Even if they are beta testers… no, it’s precisely because they are beta testers that we need their combat power in the boss battles. If we exclude them and cause the strategy to fail, then there’s no point in doing anything.”

These words sounded righteous and awe-inspiring, but Solin had already noticed from some subtle details that the King of Fangs and Diabel were simply playing good cop and bad cop, first bluffing the closed beta testers present to dampen their spirits, and then having Diabel step in to smooth things over, appease the closed beta testers, and get them to get back to work.

"You've got a good plan, but I wonder how much you're capable of," Solin thought to himself, already considering Diabel a potential competitor. He reasoned that someone like Diabel would inevitably establish a guild after a while, which would attract some of the high-end players Solin had originally intended to recruit into his future raid groups.

Of course, these are things to consider later. Right now, Solin just needs to defeat this boss and successfully reach the second floor. And this requires the cooperation of all the players present.

"Now everyone, form teams as close as you can. I'll make a few minor adjustments and then start assigning tasks!" After Diabel finished speaking, everyone in the arena sprang into action, and six-person teams were formed almost instantly.

"【Thousand Swordsman】Sorin... that's quite an impressive title." Kirito looked at Sorin as he walked up from below and couldn't help but tease him, "So, you, who aren't even a closed beta player, going down there to speak for the closed beta players... are you sure you won't get into trouble?"

"I'd love for those noobs to challenge me to PvP. I've been streaming PvE for so long, I'm tired of watching, but my viewers are tired of it. After we finish this boss, I'll be looking for people to duel at the entrance of the second-level main city every day." After the battle of wits just now, Solin was completely exhausted and had no energy left to speak. "In a little while, the three of us will form a temporary team and see what positions they assign us."

He didn't seem to care about the three extra people on his side. In fact, a raid in SAO can only accommodate a maximum of eight squads, and 45 people is a rather awkward number. No matter how the squads are formed, there will always be a few people left over. For example, in the current situation, the people in the arena have formed seven six-person squads, leaving Sorin and his two companions standing on the side.

Under Diabel's arrangement, these people formed a more suitable team with minimal replacements. Two teams were composed of heavily armored warriors who took turns acting as tanks; there were also three teams responsible for bursting DPS; and two reserve teams equipped with polearms who could provide support at any time.

These two support teams will use the point-and-click or group control skills inherent in polearms to support the DPS team responsible for dealing with the mobs, while also being ready to restrict the boss, namely the kobold lord Ilfang.

“I have another question, Diabel,” Solin suddenly remembered something and asked, “How are the boss loot distributed, GKP or DKP?”

"...The usual rule is that whoever picks it up keeps it. The drop mechanism in this game is a bit confusing, so this is the only way." Diabel thought for a moment, answered Solin's question, and then extended an invitation to him, "Would you like to join the DPS team? I can send one of my people to that three-person team."

“Let’s forget it. The three of us can just stay on the sidelines and deal with the mobs. After all, this kind of ridiculously stupid stationary boss only has the mobs as a point of failure.” Sorin shrugged, declining Diabel’s invitation. “I’m quite curious, what kind of ‘general rules’ are you referring to?”

"Never mind, I was just asking casually, don't take it seriously. See you later, Sir Knight."

XIV. Inner World and Outer World

"Is there any way to contact SAO right now?"

“I’m sorry, Mr. Yuki, but NERvGear completely isolates SAO from the outside world. Currently, there is only one special way to contact the inside, and it can only contact one person.”

As he spoke, he opened a webpage on his computer. It was the website for the MagicTV live streaming platform. He then entered a series of numbers and switched to a live stream. The stream was currently broadcasting SAO, a death game.

"Is it possible to contact this person?" Yuki Shozo asked in a low voice.

“You can just use the private message function on the platform, but this streamer is Chinese and might not understand Japanese.” The person next to him pointed to the screen and showed Yuki Shozo the location of the private message function. “I believe that someone as talented as Ms. Yuki wouldn’t die in such a short time, even though nearly two thousand people have already been confirmed dead.”

"Okay, hopefully this streamer will let me get in touch with her, sigh..."

——————Ice City, Harbin Institute of Technology, Campus 1, Harbin Institute of Technology Hospital——————

A handsome young man lay on the hospital bed, wearing a black helmet. His breathing was steady, as if he were simply asleep. But those standing around the bed all looked worried.

"Don't look so dejected. Xiao Mo is doing just fine in there, at least he won't die anytime soon." The burly man said this while taking out a sealed talisman from his backpack and placing it next to the boy's pillow. "Those who fail to grow stronger will die, but the dead have grown stronger Tamoyev, and he's even a talisman. This thing is good enough as a talisman."

"Foreseeing the future is amazing, Yang-ge, what a generous move!" Another young man wearing glasses exclaimed first, then suddenly raised his phone and showed the live stream screen, "Hey Yang-ge, it seems that Teacher Mo is leading a team to fight a boss, do you want to take a look?"

"Alright, finish reading before you leave, but kid, don't you dare hang out here!"

------

The path to the dungeon area wasn't particularly dangerous; at least thanks to the advance team's clearing, there weren't many monsters to be seen along the way. Sorin and his two companions strolled leisurely along the path. Kirito was teaching Asuna some basics of team-based monster hunting, while Sorin was scrolling through his comments and in-game messages.

"Brother Liu, you really put a future-predicting 'Flash Tower Turtle' on my bedside table as a talisman? And if you have time, get me a set of P9s too... Who is this guy? He wants me to look after his daughter? I don't have the time for that!" Suolin looked at the message from Yuuki Shozo with some confusion, muttering to himself, "Yuuki Asuna... In this online game, everyone uses screen names. Who knows who Yuuki Asuna is?"

Despite his confusion, he still had to put on a show. He stopped and grabbed Kirito and Asuna, who hadn't noticed him stop.

"Which of you two knows the name [Yuuki Asuna]?" Sorin said, casually pulling out a strategy guide from his pocket and writing the five Chinese characters "Yuuki Asuna" on a blank page. "Someone sent me a private message asking me to help look after his daughter, but I need to find this person first."

The person who sent him the private message used Chinese, and he also spoke Chinese, so he didn't realize there were some problems.

"What did you say?" Asuna trembled slightly upon hearing the name, then rushed over and grabbed Sorin, her voice filled with shock. "Are you telling the truth?"

"Why are you reacting so strongly? Let me check the pronunciation, yuwuki, asuna...asuna...wait?" Sorin first matched the name [Yuuki Asuna] to the Japanese pronunciation, and then belatedly looked at Asuna, suddenly realizing, "It's your dad looking for you...calm down later."

Sorin was so angry he wanted to curse. He had only intended to mention this matter casually, deciding whether to look for this Yuuki Asuna after defeating the boss. But now, Sorin was completely at a loss.

He could only stare blankly as Asuna wiped away her tears, her face streaked with tears, while she sought help from the sidelines.

"Does anyone know how to handle this situation? I'm waiting online, I'll offer a reward."

[The elegant Mr. Solin has opened a bounty: How to comfort a girl who is crying because she is homesick? Waiting online (2000 magic points)]

[Private message: May I speak with my daughter, Mr. Suolin?]

“Yes, yes, absolutely. Asuna, come here for a moment.” Sorin thought that there was finally a solution. He quickly walked to Asuna’s side and waved his hand in front of her. “Your father said he wants to talk to you. I’ll pass on the message. Of course, I won’t talk about anything too private, like your bank card password.”

He temporarily shut down the live stream, transferred the two thousand bounty magic points directly to Yuuki Shozo's account, and then lowered his voice as much as possible, imitating the image of a father worried about his daughter.

However, at this moment, there was suddenly no response from the other end of the internal message. Solin could only interpret this as his father having a thousand words to say but not knowing where to begin, and he hadn't felt this kind of familial affection for a long time.