14 hours later in Tokyo, the airplane lower down to its landing ground zone. The sky is gray cloudy with some sun, as James gets to terminal he's with amazed and stunned to arrive in Tokyo.

"Hello, Welcome to Tokyo, we're glad for you to be here, I hope you'll enjoy your stay, thank you." "Kon'nichiwa, Tōkyō e yōkoso, watashitachi wa anata ga koko ni iru koto o ureshiku omoimasu. Anata no taizai o tanoshinde kudasai. Arigatōgozaimashita." says announcer that speaks through intercom in English and then it talks with its Japanese language.

James goes to his way point to find his name with a assistant. "Welcome to Tokyo, Japan sir." Japanese Taxi driver greeted politely.
"Hey and thanks sir" I replied to a
Japanese taxi driver who awaits my ride at the front of the airport with the passenger door opened by the taxi driver as he stands still while I proceed nearby the taxi and we take a bow to each other.
"Is this your first time being here, sir?"
"Yea, that's right"
"Right this way, sir
"Sure thing, thanks Mr. Taxi driver."

They get to taxi and drives to busy street of Tokyo. James gets so cited of able to fulfill his dream. So many Screens on every building and vivid color signs written in Katakana text, mascots advertisement. "This is it, I'm in the paradise...... like this is.....heaven...." James gazed with excitement.

"Today's weather will be partly cloudy and the rest of the day will be gorgeous sunny and for the whole week will be fully sunshine for the the first time since it's been rain like almost any other day." Says the Weather girl as she points it out the weather of entire island of Japan and zooms right through the capital city with partly cloudy and sunny later.

They arrived at the white apartment Building in a style of Japanese architect, many balconies lined up in every other floor in gray as it can view in small town and even the big buildings in the heart of Shinjuku, Tokyo.
"Here we are, this is where you'll stay, Sir and I hope you enjoy here in Japan." Said the Taxi Driver.
"Nice....Oh, i almost forgot, Here, 1200 yen plus tips."
"Why thank you sir, see you."
"Ok, bye"
As he was about to enter the square one apartment, there was a sign that shows VR set and he caught off guard and decides to go check it out as he leave his stuff at the apartment and went to the store.

Shinjuku Ward, Noon.

James walks through people and goes to long stairway, trying to look for direction as he finds the map but it's written in Japanese and he's having hard time getting it as he sees Sony logo as where they sell the VR set.
He enters the store and many advertisement showing on TV display of pop singer singing with Japanese theme and effects as James walks by as he looks at the section and then finds the a VR set, A NervGear, a high-tech device developed a higher reality game and it's only few items left as he's one of lucky customers to buy the set before its gone and quickly goes to electronic association for purchasing the set.

"Hi there, i’m guessing VR is getting popular right now, thanks to the creator Akihiko Kayaba that everyone around Tokyo are going nuts and getting the VR set before the ones will go unlucky when it solds out. since you're purchasing Nervegear, you get an exclusively free game." says the cashier.

"Free game?" James questioned.

" That's right, today's the beta for Sword Art Online, A world of sword of MMORPG"

"Okay, the last sentence confused me but...Alright, Here you go."
"Thank you sir, and have a great day."
As James walks out to the automatic door and leaves out Sony store happily back all the way to his apartment, back at the store the manager comes to post the paper notice at the column that the SAO release date for all gamers, Along the way, James goes to his apartment room and opens up the box of Sony VR set, takes out the nerve gear as he watches the news that new developed VR game SAO which was created by Akihiko Kayaba and the Nervgear itself which the cashier at the store mentioned about it before, everyone got picked as lucky winners and able to buy the Nervgear before it ran out, got to play the beta before the release day as James luckily got it before it was gone for good. "This guy....Akihiko Kayaba, the man who developed a newer advanced technology that it would've taken years to able make VR become reality in person unlike the ones like Orclus became a early staged of VR....This guy, can he be a real genius, or....." James thought thoroughly then snapped out of it from spacing out as he Plugs the internet connection and the SAO beta game

James sighted as he's ready to dive in for the first time "Here we go"
He hops on his bed and puts on the nervegear with Wi-Fi on and the machine begin to operate as James closes his eyes and waiting patiently.

"LINK START!"

The mind goes to the virtual reality with many colorful lights flies different direction and goes to signing up the game account and Language
and zooms out blue light, the title.

WELCOME TO SWORD ART ONLINE

September 17, 2022
Crossing Field

James open its eyes and sees everything its surroundings are land and the vortex lifts up the platform.
"Whoa, am i inside of the reality and…."
He looks around and doesn't see many people around and the sound of the air breezed.
"Hello! Anyone there? Hey? Somebody? Huh….What's this??
James looks at his outfit and touches on his chest if to see if he can feel it.
"It doesn't seem like other VR when you want to feel that you're in game and no idea what's going on outside and wanna freak out but....... I'm actually in game....No way! This is cool! I can feel everything, i can see my hands.... my feet...i can feel myself when I'm  touching....YOO THIS IS DOPE!!!"

Then there was a snarly growl as he jumped and turns around as he sees a red furred nasty dog.
"Ohh Crap!! Now what!
How will i ever gonna defend myself!!" I thought."
As I accidentally waved my right hand up and down, appeared the scroll menu and was shocked to know what i do and got confused.
"What...did.. I.... just...do?"
He sees the sword icon and immediately selected the sensor button and a blue growing light summoned out a beginner sword as he grabs it and look at himself in the reflection of the bladed sword and look at his enemy.
"Bring it" as He face his enemy with a sharped eye and the red wolf looks at James with its mouth open dripping and teeth are pointy as he bend its leg for stealth. Both charged up and running right to their direction as they're about to clash and jumped.
"HAAYAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

James had his sword pointing at the wild red wolf and dives down to strike, stabs on the top of Wild Red Wolf's back and took out the HP as it vanished. His quest was finished and his stats leveled up from 1 to 10.
"Amazing..... At this rate, I could get even stronger and stronger in no time. Alrighty then, time to get down into business and you creatures, you better get ready....Prepare yourselves."
With enough confidence has James level up to 20 by now, as he faced off his last kill. "That was easy, as tougher it got for my first start. Things are gotta be piece of cake."

As he encountered more red wolves than he had killed at the first start as his stats are going high every single time and learning to know how to buff out his HP stats, raising its Attack and gaining his sword skills. Throughout the other side of the land, he was going through hard hits as he was taken by tougher enemies, James's HP stat is going critical as it's going through middle and then goes down every time he gets hit, then he was going to his 2nd move to slice out the enemies as they left into digitally as they were destroyed. A Congratulation sign appeared on top of it's Menu window as he close it, he spotted a player having trouble with couple of Wild Hogs like, screeched as it was a girl, he ran right at towards her as she begin to scream and covering her face from a Blue Boar charging right at her as it jump, she cover her head above as she's at the ground being worthless. A moment she waited, the girl opened her eyes and sees up wondering what just happened all suddenly that why she wasn't being attacked. The hog was lifting still and spotted a sharpen tip of the Sword impaled right in the middle of its chest and thrust right through out its back and lies down till it went to zero then it disappeared into a thin white and blue digital cube like. Right through it, she sees a player hoisting its sword back to its case as James sees a girl and approaches her to see if she's alright.

"That was too close, Glad that I managed to stop it in time. Are you ok?" James asked as the girl with a brown hair with gray shade brightening her side hair. She's wearing a newbie outfit of a brown armor and lighter gray shirt with a white skirt. She looks at a spiky black/brown hair boy glaring without hearing what he said and then she nodded as she was alright. He lend his hand to her and acceptably grab his hand as he help her lift up back on its feet. "T-T-thank you, for coming here and save me from them. Idk why was i thinking....I couldn't barely defend myself from any enemy that comes right at me. I'm still not good at this." She says. James looks at her feeling pity for getting anyone's life in danger cuz of her but he disagreed and being determined. "Don't worry I'll tell you what, How about you and I should team up for a quest?" He pats on her left shoulder and looks at James taking things seriously and took a smile of a agreement. "Where are my manners tho, The name's James, it's a pleasure to meet you."
"Nice to meet you James, I'm Koharu, just Koharu."
"Koharu huh...... sounds pretty cut...Dah I mean, cool, cool." He flustered and grabs on his cheeks as she giggled. "Man.....I almost burst out too soon" He spoke thru his mind. "Anyways, we should get going. Shall we?" He asked. "Sure, you can count on me!" said Koharu. As the pair went off to the next quest for scavenging more materials.

At the grass field surrounded by Rocky mountains around them as the dirt path leads them straight to next floor, as James and his new party member, Koharu walks together feeling confident and sometimes a bit nervous as he looks at her every time to see she's ok after the incident and first time meeting each other in person. "Koharu....A girl that I barely met, am i dreaming... Is that a true player or a bot? Cuz I've never spoken to anyone who's a girl.... honestly I'm just hidden from socializing to anyone... even for girls. In my school...I've never spoken to anyone except the ones in my class... even for guys. How am I not socialized to girls.... do they think boys are weird.... are they confident to talk to them even they don't know each other.....Or a stranger, like me. Well I'm looking at a person who's a girl, right here, right now.....with her. We barely met, I can't say..... are we beginning as bonds" His mind snapped out of it as Koharu called him out that there's a couple of hogs in their path as she takes out her dagger and prepares to attack as James wields out his sword and face at his enemy, both charged right at the Hogs and jumped at the same time and slashed to their enemies as Koharu is getting the hang of it without tripping. James deals with two of Hogs and slashes with his sword twice and other came at him aggressively and putting the whole weight on him as he's nearly being pin down but he managed to stab it on its chest twice and slash it for its finished move, then he checks to see Koharu is doing ok as she finished off with the blue hog, one in the distance is charging right at her.

"Koharu! It's coming for you!" He yelled. She looked around and saw that it's coming at her, she quickly dodged it and sliced it all the way at the right side of it's body with a dagger that killed it off. Their quest ended with a congratulation displaying on their scroll menu and earned EXP points, materials and leveling it up.
"We did it! So, that was good right?" Koharu asked.
"Yea, it was, at least you didn't fall over this time." He giggled.
"Aww c'mon! I'm better now!" She pout.
As both were laughing together until their pop up menu window show up that the beta test is about to end.
"Oh boy, looks like the beta is almost over, huh" said James.
"ALRIGHT!! I'M GONNA DO GREAT ON THE FULL GAME WHEN IT COMES OUT SOON!! She joyed as Koharu looked at James, meeting a boy was something she had experienced in VR sees him as a perfect player to be join party, she approaches him slowly as he was looking at the menu list.
"So hey, James....Will you play with me again after the release...I'm sure you and I were a great team work, what do you say? Koharu asked as she was slightly blushing and gave a cute look at James as he was surprised and his cheek got red as he was heating up his face. "Well, Sure I love to, hope we can see each other again." He accepted.
"Woo-hoo!! Well.....I gotta go then, I'm so glad that I met you, you seem like a great guy. See you....James." the sun is brightening at her as she's blocking the sun as it was setting she immediately logs out.

James blinked as he's now by himself and then he logs him out as well as back to this apartment he opened his eyes and gets up slowly and removed his VR helmet smoothly and was surprised for a day he had and he stares at the NervGear and remembers everything he had with Koharu and never forget that person.
"See you, huh.... I'm glad I met a person like you....Koharu" he places his NervGear on the selves and then he fell backward on his bed, spreading out and feeling relief. "Yes!!" He sighed.
"I love technology"
After the beta test, James is been going to his new transferred school as he was learning math in Japanese and essay. He couldn't stop thinking about SAO beta and meeting a cute girl on VR. Wondering if she lived around in Tokyo where he's at but no sign of her, as few months has passed as the temperature got breezy the following month.
"Wish I could have her email or something.....hopefully I'll meet any players in Japan" he signed.

At the release day, news showing that everyone is preparing to dive on full game of SAO as there's many excitement spreading around in Tokyo. James hurried on his way back to the apartment from school with a full game disc he has right now as the countdown for SAO launch begins.
"Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!" He connects the internet and the disc game and puts on his NervGear as the countdown begin to 10.
Everyone including him were ready.
"Here we go......." he inhaled one last breath till the clock tick to 0.
"LINK START!"

Next Chapter:
Trapped.