I ignored the odd feeling of my chest being restricted and ran. I ran desperately to the northwest gate of the Starting City and then past the large plains and the deep forest, then a small village located past all this—then past that to an endless, lonely game of survival. Chapter 4 One month into the game, two thousand people were dead. The hope that outside help would come had been crushed; not even a message had gotten through. I didn’t see it myself, but they said that the panic and the madness that took hold of the players when they realized that they really couldn’t get back was unbelievable. There were people crying and others wailing, and some even tried to dig up the ground of the city saying that they were going to destroy this world. Of course, all buildings were non-destructible objects, so this attempt failed without any results to show for it. They say that it took days for the players to accept the situation and think of what to do afterward. The players were split into four big groups. The first consisted of a little over half of the players; they were the ones who still wouldn’t accept the conditions that Kayaba Akihiko had put forth and still waited for outside help.