Sword Art Online
Chapter 1
A grey sword cut my shoulder.
The thin line at the top left corner of my field of vision shrank slightly. At the same time a cold hand passed over my heart.
The blue line —called the “HP bar”— is a visual rendering of my life force. There was still a little over 80% left. No, that phrase isn't appropriate enough. Right now, I was about 20% closer to death.
I dashed backwards before the enemy's sword even began its attacking motion.
“Haaa...”
I forced a huge breath to steady myself. The «body» in this world didn't need oxygen; but the body on the other side, or rather the body lying down in the real world, would be breathing heavily. My limp hands would be soaked with sweat, and my heartbeat would be off the charts.
Of course.
Even if everything I see right now is nothing more than a rendering of a 3D virtual reality, and the bar being reduced was nothing more than a bunch of numbers that showed my hit points, the fact that I was fighting for my life didn't change.
When you think about it like that, this fight was extremely unfair. That's because the «enemy» in front of me —a humanoid with dully shining arms covered in dark green scales and a lizard's head and tail— was not a human, nor was it really alive. It was a digital lump that the system would replace regardless of how many times it was killed.
—No.
The AI that controlled the lizardman was studying my movements and enhancing its ability to respond to them with every second that passed. However, the moment that this unit was destroyed, the data would be reset instead of being passed on to the unit that would regenerate in this area.
So in a sense, this lizardman was also alive, a single being unique to this world.
“...right?”
There was no way that it would have understood the word that I had muttered to myself, but the lizardman (a level 82 monster called «Lizardman Lord») hissed and smiled, showing the sharp fangs that protruded from its long jaw.
This is reality.
A grey sword cut my shoulder.
The thin line at the top left corner of my field of vision shrank slightly. At the same time a cold hand passed over my heart.
The blue line —called the “HP bar”— is a visual rendering of my life force. There was still a little over 80% left. No, that phrase isn't appropriate enough. Right now, I was about 20% closer to death.
I dashed backwards before the enemy's sword even began its attacking motion.
“Haaa...”
I forced a huge breath to steady myself. The «body» in this world didn't need oxygen; but the body on the other side, or rather the body lying down in the real world, would be breathing heavily. My limp hands would be soaked with sweat, and my heartbeat would be off the charts.
Of course.
Even if everything I see right now is nothing more than a rendering of a 3D virtual reality, and the bar being reduced was nothing more than a bunch of numbers that showed my hit points, the fact that I was fighting for my life didn't change.
When you think about it like that, this fight was extremely unfair. That's because the «enemy» in front of me —a humanoid with dully shining arms covered in dark green scales and a lizard's head and tail— was not a human, nor was it really alive. It was a digital lump that the system would replace regardless of how many times it was killed.
—No.
The AI that controlled the lizardman was studying my movements and enhancing its ability to respond to them with every second that passed. However, the moment that this unit was destroyed, the data would be reset instead of being passed on to the unit that would regenerate in this area.
So in a sense, this lizardman was also alive, a single being unique to this world.
“...right?”
There was no way that it would have understood the word that I had muttered to myself, but the lizardman (a level 82 monster called «Lizardman Lord») hissed and smiled, showing the sharp fangs that protruded from its long jaw.
This is reality.