Chapter 011- The Death Game Begains

---Time Skip---

"Cheers!" A party is going on in the Argus company because of its successful release of the NerveGear along with a virtual reality game named Sword Art Online. The beta test for the game is already over and it is scheduled to be officially started on the beginning of the next week.

Since this is the first virtual game to be ever played in history, it's popularity went through the roof just after the announcement of its release. For now, the game can be only played in Japan. So, some game enthusiast from other countries even flown to japan just to participate in this historical moment.

According to the statistic, if the game was released on a global scale, it would have been easy to pull millions of players over the world just on the first day of release. But since Rifat knows he will get into a really big trouble if such a big amount of people of gets trapped inside the SAO, he refrained from doing so.

In order to avoid both legal trouble and global outrage, Rifat just launched it on Japan and restricted the number of participants in this game to just 10,000 which is similar to the number of participants in the canon.

Also, in order to decrease the number of casualties, he already started taking some measures. The minute after the participant reaches the max number in the game, the government will announce to the public about the death game and inform them not to take out the helmet from the head.

In the canon, Akihiko did remind the public of the consequences of taking out the helmet from the head but some of them didn't believe him and did that anyway which resulted in deaths of several gamers. But if the government announces it, this will be totally different story and nobody will try to take out the helmet forcefully.

The participants will also be transported to one of the medical facilities under Rifat's name where they will taken care of fully free of charge. So, the only way they will die if their in game character faces death.

"Rosalia, have you prepared all the materials that we will publish right after the game release?" Rifat asked.

In the canon, Rosalia was the leader of the 'Titan's hand' orange guild. She scouted for victims and lured them to a place where the other members of the guild would then attack and loot the victims.

After Rifat found her, he decided to let her be on his side and made her his secretary in order to do some dirty works for him.

[A/N: Should I add her in the harem or not?]

"Yes, Rifat sama. I already written some articles which is scheduled to be published right after the public gets to know it's a death game. I also bribed some of the major celebrities to speak good about you and the company once that happens. So, it will not be a problem to push all the blames on Akihiko Kayaba for all the casualties in the death game." Rosalia replied.

"Good. I didn't recognize the wrong person when I chose to let you be my secretary." After finishing his talks with Rosalia, Rifat went to Akihiko Kayaba who can been seen talking to his girlfriend about something.

As he went closer to them, both of them respectfully greeted him. Akihiko's girlfriend Rinko Koujiro already found out about the death game when she was researching about the NerveGear with him. At first she was very angry about this and even wanted to kill Akihiko to stop this madness but in the end her heart softened and she couldn't do so as she decided to support Akihiko in fulfilling his dream.

"Akihiko, I have already prepared a plane and a safe house for you in a foreign country. After this party ends, you and your girlfriend should escape the country otherwise it will be too late once the game starts."

"I also prepared a lab for you there to complete the research on Virtual Technology and give me the finished product as you promised. I hope you will not let me down."

"Thank you for all of your support, Rifat sama. As long as I don't die, I will make sure to give you the finished product in 1-2 years of time."

"I hope so. By the way, have you made some safe NerveGear that I wanted?" Rifat asked.

"Yes, I made hundreds of them and put them in your office. There is no risk if you wear those and enter the game. I will also add the Log out option in your profile so that you can Log out at any time you want."

"Good. But make sure that only I can see that button. Otherwise, it will become a problem if someone else sees that." Rifat said.

"I understand, Rifat sama."

After talking to Akihiko Kayaba about some other things for a while, he went to his office to look at the safe NerveGears prepared by Akihiko Kayaba. After leaving one out for himself, he took the rest of them and went out to distribute those to his other close friends that he made over the years.

Even though they will not be able to log out of the game until someone clears it, at least after logging in with this NerveGear, there will not be any threat to their lives. Even if they die in game or someone else takes off their helmet from the outside, they will not face death or anything serious.

.....

---A week Later---

Rifat is planning to log into SAO. Beside him is his butler and some maids who will take care of his body during the time he plays the game.

As he put on the helmet and logged into the game, his vision started fade away as Rifat found himself in a fantasy like world. Since he already participated in the beta test, there was no confusion on his eyes as he quickly went to the meeting point where he and others planned to meet.

As he reached there, he found Asuna, Misumi and Asada are hanging out with each other. Because of Rifat's influence, all of his close friends managed to participate in the closed beta of this game. So, they are not only familiar with the basics of the game but also are familiar with each other.

As Rifat went to them, he also joined in their conversation and waited for the others to show up. It didn't take more than five minutes before everyone was gathered as Rifat quickly formed a party with all of them.

Besides Rifat, the other members of this party are Asuna, Suguha, Asada, Misumi, Rika, Konno Yuuki, Ayano, Rosalia, Kirito and Agil and Argo. So, there is total 12 people in the party right now.

All of the party members beside Rifat have subsystem gifted to them by him. Rifat has been releasing mission to make them an expert in their respective fields so that they might help in managing the guild and conqueror this game. Rifat wasn't disappointed as they completed missions after missions and got better over time.

As for the Klein and other side characters of SAO who also got the subsystem, Rifat doesn't have any plan to let them join the party right now. He plans to wait until he reaches floor three and gets the guild creation token first and then invite them to the guild directly. Since Rifat was already familiar with them in real life, it should be quite easy to get them to join his guild.

'Now the only thing I have left to do is to fool all of them in thinking that I have been trapped with them in this game as well. I should also be very careful when logging out and not let others discover this fact otherwise all of my hard work in building this relationship with them will all be in vain.' Rifat thought to himself.