I was there watching how everything ended. Just an average player that managed to survive until the end somehow. Never standing out above others or in front of others. Still, I was satisfied knowing that everything was over and I would be finally free.
I saw Kayaba Akihiko turning into particles of light while he was disguised as the leader of Knights of Blood. We made some sacrifices along the way, but they wouldn't be for nothing… Eventually, the surroundings began to disperse into particles of light and I found myself returning to the logging screen. My avatar was being deleted and soon I was back on how I started in the world of Aincrad. It felt a bit off since all my progress being so easily deleted, but it wasn't better than freedom. However, it seemed that my freedom wouldn't be granted that easily…
When all the life finally dissipated, I didn't find my face half covered in the helmet of the game or the ceiling of my room or of a hospital room. I found myself back at the starting point… the city of beginnings.
"What? What?"
I looked around me and I couldn't see the other players, I could see the NPCs following their usual routine paying no mind to me, but that wasn't important. I waited for a while to see if someone else would show up and explain what was happening.
"What is going on? He was defeated, so why is the server still online?"
Something was clearly off, so I decided to check my status screen.
Username: [Lunar]
Level: 1
HP: 100 / 100
EXP: 0 / 100
Col: 0
Location: Floor 1 - City of Beginnings
Title: None
Guild: None
Party: None
PK Status: Green (Non-combatant)
--------------------------
PARAMETERS
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STR (Strength): 10
AGI (Agility): 10
VIT (Vitality): 10
DEX (Dexterity): 10
END (Endurance): 10
LUK (Luck): 5
Attack Power: 15
Defense: 15
Movement Speed: Normal
Attack Speed: Normal
EQUIPMENT
--------------------------
Weapon: Starter Sword
Armor: Leather Armor (Basic)
Accessory: None
--------------------------
INVENTORY
--------------------------
- Health Potion x1
- Return Crystal (Disabled)
- Starter Sword (Equipped)
- Leather Armor (Equipped)
--------------------------
SKILLS
--------------------------
- One-Handed Sword (Rank 1)
- Empty
--------------------------
SYSTEM MENU
--------------------------
- Log Out: [Unavailable]
- Settings
- Help
- Message Inbox (0)
I was back to level one with the crappy gear that I had back then as well. Still, when I checked the other things about my inventory, guild and friend list all of that was empty… my heart went cold imagining what had happened. The game kept going perfectly for those two years, so why would there appear such a bug at the very end, was it because it wasn't supposed to end like this?
This has to be a bad joke, but just thinking about that would solve nothing. Perhaps I still could leave, eventually, the server would be shut off or at least someone would find the logs of my actions, right? It was simply impossible that I would remain locked in here.
I decided to walk around the city and see if there was any clue as to what was going on. Perhaps there was some visible bug that would explain this. Still, even after a couple of hours, I found nothing. If anything, the game seemed more real than I remember for some odd reason. The NPCs were looking at me, but they weren't saying anything like they were programmed to do.
'If Kayaba Akihiko didn't show up until now, he truly died… this isn't another one of his experiments, right?'
In any case, it was already mid-afternoon, and I was broke, hunting at night would be dangerous… I didn't want to risk dying here since nothing says if that would solve the problem, so I decided to hunt some monsters to get enough money to pay for an inn and my food.
'What the heck…'
I could see some people in the field hunting boars… when they killed the creatures, they turned into particles of light just like before, but they left some loot on the ground. At the same time, I could tell that these people weren't players… they didn't have the starting gear like I had, while I could see that they had access to the system since they stored the loot in their inventories, the fact that the loot didn't went straight to their inventories confirmed that. Then again, I had to check if things were still like before.
'If they have access to the system, they can level up as well… if they are much stronger than me, perhaps it would be dangerous to get closer to them since I am not supposed to be here anymore.'
I didn't know why—or if—Kayaba Akihiko would let the world of Aincrad keep running like this, like some kind of autonomous virtual reality. He had achieved his goal, hadn't he? He created a perfect death game, saw it through to the end, and vanished,
So then… Why was this world still running?
Was this the last echo of his dream? A self-sustaining simulation? Or maybe—just maybe—his plan went deeper than we ever imagined. What if this world was never meant to end? What if it was designed to evolve without us?
The thought struck me like a cold wind: What if Kayaba's true intention wasn't just to trap us in a game… but to train something inside it?
Artificial intelligence.