Suddenly, an urge to laugh out loud bubbled up from the bottom of my stomach. I drove it down. A long horizontal line was shining at the top left corner of my vision. As I focused on it, the numbers 342/342 overlaid it. Hit points. My life-force. The moment it reaches zero, I will die—the electromagnetic waves will fry my brain, killing me instantaneously. This is what Kayaba had said. This is without a doubt a game, a game with your life at stake. In other words, a death game. I must have died at least 100 times during the two months of beta testing. I had respawned with a slightly embarrassed smile on my face in the palace at the north of the main plaza, the «Black Iron Palace», and ran off into the hunting grounds again. That was what an RPG was, a sort of game where you keep dying and learning and leveling up. But now you can't? Once you die, you'll lose your life? And in addition—you can't even stop playing? "...no freaking way," I muttered softly. Who in their right mind would go out onto the field with those conditions? Of course everyone would just stay inside the city where it was safe. Then as if reading my, and maybe all the other players', mind, the next message was given. 'Players, there is only one way to be freed from this game. As I have said before, you must get to the top of Aincrad, the one hundredth