A journey to another world starting from a sword

Chapter 4: Two-Handed Swordsman

In fact, magic does not exist in SAO, and the game's developer, Akihiko Kayaba, would not have wanted to see that.

After all, once SAO became a death game, all players had a clear objective: they absolutely could not die there. If there were a way to attack without getting close to the monsters, most people would probably choose that.

If magic truly existed in SAO, then all players who left towns could stay at a safe distance from monsters, casting spells and killing them from afar. This was definitely not what Kayaba Akihiko wanted.

That's why he promoted it this way, wanting players to use their own bodies and their own swords to fight, allowing players to experience the full charm of a fully immersive environment.

Then, boldly, in this fantasy adventure game world, the "magic" from the traditional "sword and magic" genre is excluded.

Having played a trick on the girl with a non-existent "magic," Dante retreated against the crowd and ran towards the shopping street that the NPC had pointed out.

The two girls were classmates and friends in real life, and now they met again in the game. I decided not to disturb their joy.

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If one day you were on a roadside in the suburbs, enjoying the night breeze and listening to music, and suddenly a meteorite hit you, how would you feel?

Then, an old elf claiming to be a god tells you, "You are already dead. If you don't want to die like this, then do me a small favor." How would you feel then?

As a physically and mentally healthy man, his only remaining thought is probably the computer at home that wasn't destroyed.

Don't be afraid of being shattered into pieces, you must keep your innocence in this world!

The ancients never deceived me!

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Along the stone streets, Dante swiftly moves through the medieval-style buildings.

The wind he was running through gently caressed his face, making everything seem incredibly real.

As you pass by shops and residences, you can hear vendors hawking their wares or residents chatting.

The streets were full of players wearing leather armor, wandering around in groups of three or five, and occasionally you could see a handsome man and a beautiful woman chatting enthusiastically.

But was she really a beautiful woman? Or was she even a woman at all?

Thinking of this, Dante silently mourned for the man who had approached him.

Although you can change your appearance in this game, which is called character customization, it's completely meaningless!

Because in the evening, the game's developer, Akihiko Kayaba, will recreate the players' appearances as they do in real life!

Then... one by one, the beautiful female players turned into overweight middle-aged men or something else, resulting in a significant imbalance in the male-to-female ratio. Female players became a rare species in the game, and beauties among them were even rarer.

Those two women were both stunningly beautiful in real life, so meeting them was a stroke of luck.

From the beginning, Dante did not care about his appearance and entered the game with his real appearance.

Upon arriving at the weapon shop, an older woman wearing a coarse cloth apron greeted Dante with a hearty laugh: "Brave adventurer, would you like to buy any weapons from my shop?"

"Okay, please let me see the products in your store."

Then a weapon shop's inventory appeared before Dante, containing a wide variety of weapons, from one-handed straight swords to curved blades, from giant axes to spears—all beginner equipment, as this starting town only sold beginner gear.

If you want stronger equipment, you can only buy it from the weapon shop in the next town, or obtain it as a drop from monsters, or get it as a reward for completing tasks or by opening treasure chests in dungeons.

After a moment's thought, Dante closed the list interface and went to examine the shelves in the store.

His options only include one-handed sword, two-handed sword, and curved sword.

He chose the one-handed sword because he knew more about it than other weapons. If he was confident in his reaction speed, he could later learn the "dual-wielding" skill, which was the top of the ten unique skills.

The curved sword was followed by the powerful katana, and there is also a suspected existence of an even more advanced unique skill called "drawing sword technique".

Two-handed swords are also one of the more familiar and formal weapons, and many historically famous sword techniques involve wielding a sword with both hands.

As for the others, long weapons and heavy weapons are not flexible and rely on the protection of teammates. Moreover, these are all support weapons. Although teammates are expected to come later, he is unlikely to choose these as his first choice.

The rapier is primarily used for thrusting attacks; it is a weapon that requires skill and is difficult to master.

Other oddly shaped weapons were not even in his consideration.

Dante approached a weapon that was clearly a one-handed sword, reached out, and easily picked it up without triggering any pop-ups.

"...So light."

As he raised it, he muttered a complaint under his breath, and to verify his guess, he swung it a few times, making a "whooshing" sound in the air.

The weapon called "Small Sword" is probably the most common one-handed sword in SAO.

But in this game, the body doesn't feel any weight at all; it's like holding a tree branch—it has no real feeling.

So his current strength is actually a combination of his physical attributes and the strength stat in the game?

After putting it down, he walked to the two-handed sword next to him, picked it up with his back to the side, twirled it in his hand, and then held it with his right hand.

Now I finally have the real feeling of holding a weapon. It's much heavier than the one-handed sword I just used, and it's called a "greatsword".

Looking at the curved sword next to it, its blade is actually shorter than that of a one-handed sword.

Based on the principle that every inch longer is stronger, he had no choice but to exclude the curved sword from his options.

So I decided to buy the two-handed sword. Using the 1000 Cor that every player receives at the beginning of the game, I spent 800 Cor to buy the two-handed sword.

Then I clicked on the instant equipment next to it, and a very simple longsword, in the style of a Western broadsword, instantly appeared behind me.

"Clang!" Dante drew the sword from his back and held it horizontally in front of him, the smooth blade reflecting his face.

His jet-black, tousled hair swayed gently as he moved his head, and beneath his sword-like eyebrows were a pair of bright, piercing eyes that flashed with a cold light when he focused.

With a "clang," the sword was sheathed. Now, it was time to head outside the city.

The lower floors are wider, while the upper floors gradually become smaller.

The largest layer, the first layer, is said to be ten kilometers in diameter. The main street area, which is the largest city on the first layer, the "Town of Beginnings," is a semi-circular area that extends outward from the southern end of the layer, with a diameter of one kilometer.

The town, located on the grassland, had high walls built, making it impossible for monsters to invade.

It's worth mentioning that these towns are also protected by a "crime prohibition order," where players will not lose health and any attacks will be ineffective, blocked by a purple pop-up window. The same applies to the roads about one to two kilometers outside the towns, which players commonly refer to as the "inner circle."

The areas outside the aforementioned regions are considered the outer circle. This area has no system protection, and any attack method is effective, allowing for player-versus-player combat.

Malicious PvP in the wild will cause the green cursor above a player's head to turn orange, and players with orange cursors will be driven away by guards when entering regular towns.

Of course, there are also some "outside villages" scattered in the corners of the map, providing a resting place for criminal players who cannot enter regular towns.

Later, a small group of players trapped in the game became psychologically disturbed, obsessed with killing, and discovered a bug that allowed them to kill within the safe zone. This meant that staying in towns was no longer safe, especially for mid-level players.

Indeed, only by becoming stronger can one be truly safe, unless one does nothing and completely lies down. However, Dante would not choose the path of lying down.

He has even grander and more ambitious goals.

The seemingly inexplicable progress bar that appears randomly above his field of vision will eventually make him the "god" of this world when it is fully pushed!

...But the progress bar is empty right now, so it's a bit too early to think about that.

He bought a quantity of low-level healing potions, not exceeding the weight limit, from the item shop, and then ran along the widest main road toward the north gate of the starting town.

Chapter 5: The Real Battle

When running, Dante opens the main menu, then the skill bar. Level 1 players only have two "skill slots".

Skill slots are two at level 1, three at level 6, four at level 12, five at level 20, and one more every 10 levels thereafter.

Although there aren't many skills in the end, learning and combining various skills within the limited skill slots is part of the fun of this game.

First, you need to learn the skill of two-handed swords, which is the foundation for being able to use "sword skills".

Currently, the proficiency level is 0, but with continued use, it will eventually reach the maximum proficiency of 1000. Furthermore, at each higher proficiency level, new "two-handed sword techniques" will be learned.

Initially, there were only the basic single sword skills "Explosion" and "Whirlwind".

One is a vertical, heavy strike; the other is a horizontal sweep.

Because it is a single-hit sword skill, the cooldown time is short enough, and it is also a very commonly used basic sword skill.

"Explosion" is a sword skill that deals damage to a single target and has a higher damage multiplier, while "Whirlwind" can deal damage to multiple targets and is more flexible.

The cooldown time for the multi-hit sword skills learned later is much longer, and once the sword skills are activated, they cannot be stopped. Therefore, sword skills with ten or even twenty hits can only be used as ultimate moves against bosses or elite monsters, and you must pay attention to the timing of their use.

Of course, in addition to combat skills, there are also crafting skills such as metallurgy, leather crafting, and tailoring, as well as various daily skills such as fishing, cooking, and music.

If SAO hadn't become a death game, then Aincrad would truly have become a fantasy world carrying "poetry and distant places," where players could live in their own way, whether freely exploring the streets of various towns or embarking on grand adventures in the vast wilderness, without having to risk their lives to conquer 100-floor dungeons.

It was supposed to be this romantic...

Run to the grassland outside the North Gate, where a large number of blue wild boars, officially known as "Rampaging Wild Boars," are scattered.

This is a level 1 monster, the same level as Dante, so it won't pose a life-threatening danger. If you can't beat it, just run away. Just be careful not to lose your weapon like some reckless person did.

Ordinary players lose their weapons but don't have the money to buy another one.

He left the main road and walked to the grass by the roadside.

There weren't many players in sight; after all, apart from hardcore gamers, most people were probably still engrossed in the unique scenery of the starting town.

In other words, there was no one competing with him for this training area; the monster respawn rate was definitely faster than the rate at which he could kill them.

As he got closer, the wild boar in front of him spotted Dante, its eyes reddening, and it began to thrash the grass with its hind hooves.

The wild boar, making a squealing sound, charged at him like a bull.

Facing the charging wild boar, Dante drew his sword and dodged to the side.

Although he really wanted to dashingly cut down the boar, he felt a little sympathy for the bullfighter when faced with the wild boar charging towards him.

If I had to use an analogy, it's similar to playing Resident Evil in VR. Due to the limitations of the transmission medium, the feeling of being separated by a screen is completely different from being face-to-face.

As a novice facing his first monster to kill, Dante decided to take a safer approach.

The wild boar, charging in a near-straight line, was easily dodged by Dante. After charging forward a short distance, it stopped, preparing to turn around and launch its next attack.

Just like before, Dante dashed forward, easily dodging the attack. Then, he quickly ran towards the halted boar, raised his sword vertically, and unleashed a single sword technique called "Explosion."

After assuming the system-defined starting position, you can trigger a sword skill. The weapon will be enveloped in different colored light effects before slashing down.

The system will also automatically assist the player's movements and speed, allowing them to perform superhuman skills.

For example, right now, Dante felt the push from the sword, and he followed that push, forcefully slashing down at the boar's forehead.

The sword, enveloped in an orange glow, drew a graceful arc in the air, smoothly slicing through the wild boar's body. The fiery red light truly resembled an "explosion."

The wild boar's HP dropped from full to zero, and its body exploded with a "crack" sound, turning into thousands of polygonal fragments that dissipated into the air.

Dante looked at the frame that appeared in his field of vision, which listed the experience points gained from defeating wild boars and the item materials that would drop.

The sword technique is indeed powerful enough that it can kill instantly if it hits its mark.

Of course, this is also partly due to the fact that he was using a two-handed sword, a weapon that emphasizes power, and that the wild boar he had just killed was just a beginner village monster, like slimes in other games.

He then used the same method to kill 15 "raging wild boars" in 10 minutes.

These monsters contributed a total of 360 experience points and 450 Cors in him. Indeed, killing monsters is the simplest way to make money.

In just half an hour, Kor will have earned back the money she spent on the two-handed greatsword and healing potions.

The dropped items also included common materials like wild boar meat and wild boar skin, but unfortunately he hadn't learned any life skills like "cooking" or "tailoring".

Or, even if one learns "cooking," the food produced with low initial proficiency would probably taste rather unpleasant.

There are no extra skill slots available; there are only two skill slots in total. Dante has decided to learn the "Target Finder" skill for the second skill slot, which will allow him to spot targets further away and hidden enemies. For now, survival should be his top priority.

So the final destination of these materials is to sell them to shops. Later, he could consider finding a companion and giving them the materials to practice his crafting skills.

Watching the blue wild boars that occasionally spawned on the grassland, Dante swung his sword. After warming up and familiarizing himself with the activation of his sword techniques, he decided to try a different fighting style.

Instead of continuing with the previous dodge-A attack method, they attempted to charge directly forward.

As the wild boar charged at him, Dante took a small step forward with his left foot, raised his sword as before, and held it horizontally in front of his chest. Just after this inhale and exhale, the system sensed the required pre-action, and the blade once again emitted an orange glow.

"Haha!"

As he let out a powerful battle cry, he kicked his left foot hard into the ground as if to help him.

After a pleasant "whoosh" sound effect, the sword traced a fiery trail in the air.

The two-handed sword's single-hit sword technique, "Whirlwind," is executed with great flair, slashing at the waist of the boar as it enters a charging state, and then cleaving its entire body in two.

The wild boar let out a "puff," and its HP plummeted to zero in an instant, turning the monster into fragments.

This method is much more efficient than before. If this continues, I should be able to reach level 2 soon.