A bit of context. This story resulted from thinking on the comment 'What would the story of SAO from Klein's perspective look like?'. At some point I deviated from that line of thought and added in an OC character that would be sticking around Klein. This story is meant to be a B-team/side story kind of deal, occasionally mixing along and modifying established events.
Additionally, each chapter is mainly done as a stream of consciousness kind of deal. I make a small list of things I want to hit, but what actually occurs completely depends on what comes out. Edits will be done to make things flow better, but for the most part this is entirely a personal project. It might be easier to think of this as a (semi) weekly blog more than an actual storyline with a clearly defined start, middle, and end. Hopefully you find some enjoyment from this flood of words.
New notes: With my current update schedule (Third Friday from posting) I've been taking one week for both myself and to do edits of previous chapters. The initial dozen or so were written and edited around the course of a week or two each; while doable, I wasn't entirely happy with the quality of them, especially as I go back and read through them.
"There was a quote I came across a while back, before any of this even started. It went along the lines of 'Your past doesn't define who you are. It's just your starting point.' Sorry, I probably translated that improperly, but what I'm trying to say is: just because we've made mistakes doesn't mean we can't grow past them."
"You'll take care of my brother, right?"
"Of course I will. He's been following this thing for months so he'll know where to bring us, but if something does goes wrong I'll be right by his side so you needn't worry about a thing."
Consciousness asserted itself mid push up, the ground undulating like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.
"And I'll be sure not to let us stay logged in too long. He has work in the morning, after all."
Without effort my hands pulled my hair into a tight bun, light blue eyes tinted by the polished metal mirror in front of me focusing on the strands of hair rebelling against the rest of its brethren and drooping just above my left eye.
"He's the most important person in my life! You better take care of him!"
In, two, three, four...
"You know, right now? He's my most important person too."
Out, two, three, four.
The words flowed gently out my mouth, my face slowly becoming pained with every syllable of my native tongue. "Please, forgive me." I bowed my head, skin touching the untarnished bronze resting against the wall. A beat. In that one second, my resolve was strengthened by a shuddering breath. With an overbearing weight pressing down on me, I stepped out of the inn I had retreated into, the only eyes trave capable of initiating conversation being my own.
The same artificial sun of just over half a month peered over the walls of the city, bathing my fellow early birds in its warmth. Vaguely familiar roads greeted me with every footfall, a week's worth of blurred memories generating a mental map of the area. When the facsimile of light and warmth fully climbed over the skyline I had long since moved into the surrounding fields, no others in sight.
Despite having two weeks to adapt to our situation, few others shared my mindset in any amount of training, still clinging to the idealistic hope that outside help would come. With such little competition, I had free reign on the waist high «Wild Boars» grazing in the fields surrounding the «Town of Beginnings». Over the course of an hour I worked my way back to handling three boars at a time, relearning how to manipulate the imperfect replica of my body. Stabs, slashes, twirls, dodges; every single action was repeated over and over, an unceasing march towards a perfection that could never be reached.
It was as I flipped over a charging boar for the umpteenth time that a glowing sword held by a man garbed in red and brown caught my attention. With the blade held at his side the only warning, the thuggish looking man blinked past his target, the path he had taken leaving a rapidly fading afterimage in his wake.
"Groooin!"
A sudden knockback brought me to a knee as I recovered, my blade instantly moving into a downward defensive position. The boar dared to strike me once again, a quick step to the side resulting in the beast receiving a gash along its side for its effort. Without further ado I made quick work of the monster, its digitalizing remains drifting up into the sky.
"Hey!" The man from before trod over to me, a hand raised in greeting. Behind him the six others spread out and began fighting the boars around us, one of whom wore a contrasting light blue in comparison to the mostly earthen tones of the others. "You know it's really cool how you fought that thing, but how come you didn't use any Sword Skills?"
I dismissed the post fight window, taking in his rugged appearance that passingly (and comfortingly) reminded me of one of my uncles. "If you don't call what I did skill, then I don't know what you would call it." I took a swig from the water skin attached to my belt, vaguely recognizing that what he referred to as sword skills and what I called sword skills were two seperate things.
"You really don't know, do you?" The man gave me a befuddled look. "How have you even survived this long?"
I raised a brow as I stretched my limbs out, a niggling memory reminding me that the growing heaviness in my limbs was nothing more than a by-product of this world. "Skill," I responded simply. Legs could use a bit of attention. I swear I can feel my calves screaming at me and not in the fun way.
"Look, do you mind toning down the hostility? I'm trying to help you out here, but if you're going to keep giving me attitude I have no problems walking away."
I glanced up from my split. Irritation, attraction, and a fair amount of concern; the corner of my mouth twitched at the amount of warring emotions. With a short huff purely for show, I hopped to my feet and clasped my hands in front of my lap, giving a short bow. "Apologies. It's been a trying few days, but I shall endeavor to moderate myself better." Upon rising, I inwardly smirked at how he visually receptive he became, the appraising eye he held likely for more than my so called 'sword skills'.
A confident grin adorning his stubbled face, the man jabbed a thumb at his chest. "The name's Klein. I'm in charge of these sorry guys." A few cries shouted back at him, all tinged with joking camaraderie. A laughing retort later, his face turned serious, the expression fitting him surprisingly well. "Alright, I'm sure you can handle yourself the way you've been playing, but you're taking way too long to beat those monsters. Seriously, just about anybody else could take care of those in a minute at most, but you?" Klein shook his head. "Anyway, there's three basic kinds of sword skills everybody should have."
I stared at him, realizing what he was doing. "Are- are you seriously doing this?"
"No, we're doing this. I'm not kidding, your fighting style's impressive but you're never going to survive out there without system assisted attacks. But as I was saying, the names might be different but they all go along the X, Y, and Z axis." Klein drew along each of the mentioned directions with a finger, his left hand resting on his hip. "For a one handed sword user like you, they'd be called «Horizontal», «Vertical», and «Slant». They're a lot stronger than standard unassisted attacks but regardless of whether or not you land them you'll get stuck in something that's called «Post Motion». When that happens, you won't be able to move out of the ending position of your attack for a brief moment, sort of like landing lag in platformers."
Klein pantomimed drawing his sword from its scabbard, holding the imaginary weapon to the right of his body. Were there an actual blade in his hand, it would have undoubtedly been parallel to the ground and at an angle to his body. "To activate «Horizontal», you need to hold your sword out to the side like this and then start shifting weight from your right foot to the left. The system takes care of the rest." He performed it in slow motion, using exaggerated movements. My words of gratitude died before they could even breath, a sense of disdain filling me when I thought about the supposed Post Motion. "You could also do it from the other hand, but most people aren't versatile enough to pull it off."
"For «Vertical», you'll need to move your feet like taking a step. Bring your sword up, stopping a handful of centimeters before you'd shoulder it. Once you feel the process register, release it." Between the seemingly rehearsed speech and the ease he went through the motions, I realized he was incredibly practiced in this sort of thing. Whether he was one of the few that recognized the importance of training or if he had just done this enough times I couldn't tell. Glancing to make sure I was still following, the man moved into the next set of instructions.
"«Slant» can start from two directions. To attack from the top right to the bottom left you need to fully put your sword on your shoulder, and for the bottom left to top right you need to move your sword to your waist like you were drawing it from the hip. The angle you ready it at doesn't matter too much, but a few people are saying it's better to have the blade parallel to your spine."
Explanation done, Klein took a step back, a grin adorning his face. "Why don't you take a stab at it? The others are keeping the monsters away. Oh, each sword skill adds about an extra half meter at minimum to your strikes, so you don't always need to be completely up close and personal when you're attacking."
I perked up at that last bit, boredom and irritation alleviated by the possibilities. "Hey, do you normally use puns?" I questioned. The irritating lock of hair was swiped back into position by my left hand, the rest of my body moving into the stance for «Horizontal».
"That one was an accident." Klein laughed, his embarrassment filling the void of my forced paralysis. The moment I broke free from the post motion I leapt back a few feet, a scowl taking place of my idle concern. "Hey, that was actually pretty-" Uncaring of what his next words were, I moved into the stance for a left-right «Slant», my body twisting to move the skyward sword by my shoulder for a «Vertical» once control was returned.
I went through the set once more, letting out a thoughtful hum at the end. "And we're sure these are supposed to make combat go by faster?" I stared at the flat of my sword, idly tilting it to catch the sunlight.
"Yeah. Not everybody who came in here has real life experience. Really, those people are the exceptions and not the norm." Klein walked over to me and gave me another look over, his face betraying the forming questions. "Is this your first time doing a full dive?"
"First time gaming in a while, actually." I moved through the set without allowing the mental 'click' to register, adding in a few unarmed strikes before ending with a lunging thrust. "Still don't think it'd be worthwhile for me to use sword skills all that often." I tossed my blade to my left hand, stretching out my right a few bit. "Hey, get one of your friends to bring a boar over. I wanna try these out properly."
"Er, sure." Off kilter from my casual display, the red head turned around and hollered to one of his companions. One of the two shield and sword users broke off from his group and convinced a boar over, his weapons still in a ready position even as he ran a full retreat.
"We doing this alone or together?" I shouted, grabbing the attention of the digital swine. The beast squealed at my spinning slash and flick, turning around immediately and scraping a hoof along the ground.
"What?" The helmeted male stared at me blankly, realization dawning over him after a few gestures in between dodges. After another glancing blow to the charging boar, 'Harry' rushed in with a glowing shield, the edge slamming down on the head of the quadruped like a cleaver to a rack of meat.
"Press the attack! Make sure you use a sword skill this time!"
I suppressed a grunt at the redundant advice, the register time for «Vertical» taking nearly double my previous attempt. The glee that arose from the significant dip in the boar's health was shoved aside by the irritation of the Post Motion, the tenth of a second it lasted feeling like an eternity.
"Alright, nice work!"
I held back a biting request for silence, taking advantage of Harry's repeated shield bash to mount the Frenzy Boar. A quick two handed thrust through the skull carved away a significant amount of health, but it required a twist of my blade to remove the last vestiges. I rose from my kneeling position and chopped my blade to the side, assuaging my still roaring blood with a few breaths.
"I guess if for whatever reason you shouldn't use Sword Skills you'll be fine, but you've gotta admit having them make fights go by pretty fast, right?" Klein waved Harry off, the red head spinning in place and taking count of something.
"I said I fight with skill, didn't I?" I returned his smile and joking lilt, the expression far too forced for my tastes.
Klein chuckled and shook his head, right hand tapping at window of some kind. "Why don't you join up with us? I have no doubt in you being able to handle yourself, but I'd feel wrong if I stopped by the Memorial Stone one day and found your name crossed out." He blinked and stared at me, mouth parted in an unspoken question. "Er, what is your-"
"Lakewood. Dawn Lakewood. Though if you tried to find me I suppose you'd have better luck looking for 'Asasaki'."
He silently tested out my full name a few times, finally calling me by my chosen handle. "I'm serious though. You should travel with us for a little bit. Safety in numbers aside, gamers are different from normal folk. Especially the ones in here. We're the shut in's. We aren't exactly the best at socializing and online etiquette is a lot different from reality. I'd hate to see somebody like you get taken advantage of."
I scrutinized his face for any hint of malicious intentions, partially narrowed eyes allowed to betray my amusement. "You know, I thought chivalry was dead. But here it is, living and breathing."
Shock sprouting across his face, "Hey, don't equate me to a knight! I'm a samurai, that means I follow the code of bushido!"
"Funniest looking samurai if I've ever seen one," I responded dryly, gesturing at his simple clothing and breastplate.
"That's-" Klein coughed, schooling his features. "It's a work in progress, alright? I have it on good word that in a couple floors we'll have access to more Eastern style equipment. For now we just have to make do with the Western and Middle-East gear." The self proclaimed samurai started walking, the six others slowly moving their fights to keep their roughly circular distance from us.
"Where are you guys going, anyway?" Though I was entirely willing to go along with what they wanted, habits demanded that I have at least an iota of what what going on.
"Deep into the woods," Klein pointed towards the tree tops in the distance. "There's some monsters in there that are higher leveled than the boars out here on the plains. The goal is to reach a village hidden within. It's in a different spot from Horunka and apparently nobody can remember it from the beta test." I noticed a slight hesitation in the near redheads next step. "You sure you want to head that far in with us? What level are you, anyway?"
"Don't know," I responded. Even after 'living' in it for some two weeks, there was very little that I knew about it. Weapons, food, water, everything I needed to survive was either on my person or tucked away in the «Basic Pouches» I had tied to my belt.
"How can you not-" Klein took a deep breath and stopped. "Alright, add me to your friend's list."
I stopped beside him, unable to keep the amusement off my face. "Skill," I chimed, far more smug than I had any right to.
"How did you survive this long!?" he exclaimed, hand moving to manipulate something. I pressed the circle on the window that popped up. While I was entirely capable of interacting with the system interface of this world, actually accessing it was another story entirely. "Alright, you know what? It's okay. I can work with this. I mean it's not like you're entirely worthless like that one guy I met last week." I began lazily drawing patterns with my sword, waiting for him to finish his mental breakdown. "-when we break, I'm teaching you about the basics, ground up. I don't doubt you can take care of yourself, Ms. Level 6, but there's a lot you're missing out on."
"Understood, Teacher," I drawled out, giving a short smile to the other bandana wearing man in the group. While the prospect of learning how to thrive was enticing, I couldn't help but glance at my weapon, silently lamenting my inability to utilize a dagger. Of course I'd had the chance to purchase one from an NPC, but the thought of losing the decorated ivory scabbard I'd kept stopped me from doing so.
With a loud, resounding clap, Klein raised his voice for everyone to hear. "Okay, guys! Same formations as before. Dynamm, join up with Issin and Kunimittz. Yell if you need back up!" Another window opened up, this one inviting me to a Party. Looking at him for confirmation, Klein gave me a reassuring nod. With a huff I accepted, delegating the scruffy swordsman to the position of Superior Officer for the time being.
For around an hour or so we marched on, our three parties rotating out whenever we came across a new group of monsters. A brief spurt of terror washed through me when I saw the newest enemy; a trio of level 5 Frenzy Boars. With Klein and Harry leading the charge my fears were quashed, but I couldn't help but recall the last time I had gone up against these monsters. A trio of the boars had been chasing after a group of individuals, forcing my partner and I to split up against them when the monsters turned their attention to us.
"I know they're higher leveled compared to everything else, but that's no reason to be freaking out so hard." Klein crossed his arms and stared down at me. "You've got Harry and myself right beside you, and if something bad really happens there's the others to bail you out."
"You're right. I'm just used to basically going solo whenever I went past the walls." Keep it together, girl. "I'll just need a little bit to adjust, don't worry."
"It might help if you talk to the others," Harry added. "I know we're an eccentric bunch, but we don't bite. Not really, anyway."
I took in a breath and shook my head. "Yeah. Talking might actually help out. Thanks, Harry." Taking his words to heart, I trailed back whenever my party wasn't in charge of fighting. Over time, I found out that the newest one's name was Choryu, his name derived from the kanji that meant something along the lines of 'trendy'. The dagger user worked as tech support for a handful of companies. When Klein got in on the conversation, I wasn't entirely able to follow them but apparently the man used to be a huge gamer back in high school, ending up as the Club President for his last two years. A while back he had decided to splurge on a Nerve Gear, getting his copy of SAO at the same time as Klein which was how they knew each other.
Harry One, a teen with a surprisingly sturdy appearance when combined with the simple leather head guard he'd acquired, was still in high school. On weekdays he'd cram hard and come weekends would often stay up well into the morning to hang out with his graduated friends. Dynamm, a somewhat angular man somewhere in his twenties, was learning to hand carve furniture from his uncle. When he wasn't out in the woods training he shared an apartment in the city with Kunimittz, a fairly light skinned man with a set of hair I was somewhat jealous of and who was working as a shift manager for a supermarket. When each person spoke of their past, without fail it was followed by surreptitious glances. The casual surprise at whatever they found from me I attributed to not making fun of them, at least if the few times I had talked to people in similar jobs was anything to go by. Any questions regarding my own history were deflected with years of practice, easily thrown right back at them with a coy smile. Soon enough we had entered the woods, the background music changing to a more wooden tone with the pattern kept the same.
"Klein, I see the new monsters!" Issin moved behind a tree in what seemed to be a drilled action, the rest of the group (including newcomer Choryu) doing the same. Plant like creatures around six or seven feet tall, the «Slumbering Lilies» consisted of multiple legs made from thick roots centered around a giant stalk, supporting a bulbous head of white and pink petals arranged like the tip of a trumpet. On looks alone it probably had a lot of airborne effects, perhaps a few root based attacks to pin a target down as well as attack. It was probably a slow creature as well, hard to kill with a big health pool.
Kind of wish I had an axe or a chainsaw instead of a sword. If this was reality I'd be able to get through through no problem.
"I'll test its defences out." Dale, a somewhat heavy set man, moved in, Harry One and Choryu backing him up. Managing to get right up to the monster without inciting a response, he let loose a «Vertical» along the creature's stalk. Its HP dipped a little under 10%, finally responding. I called out a warning regarding their feet, but it went unheard and the trio had their legs ensnared. I glanced at Klein, moderately annoyed by his inaction.
"Draw its attention! Somebody else, cut the roots!" I moved up to support the trio as I issues the orders. Perhaps they already had a plan and I was messing it up, but if they were going to take their sweet time responding then they deserved death.
Whether in response to my words or something else, the samurai hopeful began directing his allies to get the second Lilly away from us. As the three man team began escaping from their bindings, I ran past their aggressor, drawing my sword and slashing across the roots like one would a receive a low tennis ball. With a quick counterclockwise pivot on my right foot, I twirled my weapon around my head and brought it across the plant's girth, the angry red line disappearing after a moment.
In the corner of my eye, the four man of Klein, Dynamm, Issin, and Kunimittz were alternating between their sword skills to keep up their assault. As for the group with me, Dale and Harry did their best to swap between who took the close range tuber whip attacks while Choryu skirted their sides, landing pot shots where he could.
On my side of the gargantuan plant I kept up a stream of normal attacks, specifically targeting the giant roots. Once upon a time I had played a game where a creature could restore health using its roots, something I had no intention of testing whether or not that would occur. After a time the ground immediately around it rumbled, thick roots sprouting around it in a rather large circle. To my satisfaction, the roots that I damaged resulted in nothing sprouting in their general direction whereas Choryu and Harry became entrapped once again, having been stuck in «Post Motion».
With a full body tremble that continued even as it settled down, the lily unfolded its petals and exposed the reproductive organs within, a thick mist of pollen raining over Dale and I that prevented us from moving, a flickering yellow circle appearing over our health bars. The same was occuring to our sibling group on the other end of the clearing, though with the status effect no longer in effect standing around watching was a luxury I could no longer entertain.
Able to break free of the roots, Harry and Choryu resumed their attacks without any retaliation from the now still plant, Dale moving around the same time as myself, presumably to rejoin the two hacking at the stem.
You look pretty sturdy. Let's see what's behind door number one. With a few tugs and a somewhat awkwardly angled stab, I pulled myself onto the petal and rushed over to the reproductive organs, making weak one handed slashes at each stamen until they disappeared while I used my other hand to keep my balance around the steep center of the bulb. The plant shook violently once again, but without anything to spread pollen the forced paralysis had no way of occuring.
I dropped into the core of the plant, hooking my right arm around the untouched pistil and driving my sword into its spherical base repeatedly, deigning to use two hands on a strike after I felt confident of my balance. The unwelcome feeling of a «Sword Skill» washed over me as I raised my weapon and suddenly I took a knee, my blade sheathed up to the hilt in the plant.
A beat passed and the «Slumbering Lily» disappeared in a shower of shimmering data. Even with no particles able to collect on my clothing, I dusted myself off and took a look around the clearing to ensure our safety before dealing with the windows I had tossed to the side of my vision. Several «Lily Pollen», a «Lily Petal Fragment», and two «Lily roots» alongside 40 Cor were automatically deposited into my inventory, with the notification of having discovered the skill «Stone Sheathe» dismissed.
Another burst of data sounded off. Klein did a quick roll call and asked for status updates regarding health. As much trouble as the Lilies gave with their effects, the damage they actually did wasn't that high. My guess was that we'd find these things later on backed by harder hitting monsters that could take advantage of our stunned state.
"Okay, guys. Let's take five for now. If we can recover with time we shouldn't need health pots." Scruffles walked over to me, the serious look on his face at utter contrast with his usual behavior. Without any build up, he began speaking. "Lesson one. Accessing your menu."
I let out a quiet puff of air, dreading the next few minutes. It was a little odd how easily he went from combat to conversational, but I suppose it came from the experience of being a group leader. "You can access your menu by either making a circle with your thumb and pointer together and pulling down or using your pointer and middle and making the same motion." Klein moved to my side, his hand moving to press a few things and letting me see his menu. "Access it and then look in the upper left. There should be an icon there that looks like two boxes. That lets others see your menu."
I took the motions he described, comparing my screen to his. The information was extremely bare bones; the left window showed a simple diagram of a body and had several labels attached to various parts detailing my current equipment. The right window was a long box of tabs that took me a moment to translate into English. "Let's check your Skills." He tapped the icon of a single person, pressing the following tab of three that had the front view of a simplistic bust.
The drop down menu that popped up afterwards had the skills «One handed Curved Blade» skill and «Battle Healing» listed, with an icon for a bullet list in the bottom right. "Unsurprisingly, you have only «One Handed Sword» equipped. Press the button on the lower right. That'll show you the list of available skills you can choose from."
I did as commanded, immediately looking through the list of skills. While there was very much a translation of real life capabilities to the game, it was safe to assume that like Sword Skills, utilizing the system mechanics would make it much easier and possibly better than your own abilities. With that in mind I tapped on the skill listed as «Acrobatics», reading through the description.
#Acrobatics. Affects the ability to climb or run along walls as well as increasing the automatic ability to dodge attacks. Trained by rapidly traversing walls and dodging attacks.# I looked over at Klein, expecting commentary.
"If you want to get that skill, go ahead. This is still a game after all, so I'm not going to tell you how to play it a certain way." He grinned at me in what was probably a charming way, though for me the flirtatious attempt fell flat. Once he got his act together in terms of handling his life (he and his friends spent several days in line for this after all) he'd eventually make for a good father, or at the very least uncle.
"What's Battle Healing?" I asked, referencing his skill menu.
"It's a skill that restores your HP every few seconds based on its level. Pretty dangerous to train it though. You have to keep taking hits while in the Red to level it up." He opened up the skill, the resulting screen playing a simple stick figure video demonstration of the passive ability in action. Keeping in mind how cautious I planned on being, I mentally slotted that skill into my back pocket before looking farther down the list. "You still heal HP over time normally," he suddenly added, "so the skill just gives you a bigger heal, even in combat."
"Leather armor?" I voiced, tabbing open the skill.
#Increases the amount of defense gained while wearing Leather armor. Decreases the rate at which durability for Leather Armor is lost. Reduces weight of Leather Armor. Trained by fighting while wearing Leather Armor.#
It sounded like a good fit. This early on the numbers were fairly low, but it would add up over time. Remembering to grab Battle Healing later on, I used the third slot (something Klein didn't seem to have) for «Leather Armor». In the back of my mind I noted that I seemed a little lighter, barely more than a handful of pounds, but I imagined that it would become more prevalent later on. "How often do we gain slots?" I closed the skill description window, leaving me with the Main Menu on the left and the Skill List menu on the right.
"According to the guide being published by some of the Beta Testers, we start out with two Skill Slots, gain one at level 6, level 12, and then another one at level 20. Nobody's sure how often after that." Klein looked out at the group. Most of them were sitting down; Harry One and Kunimittz were standing on the edges of the clearing, slowly walking around and keeping a lookout.
"So you're under level 6 then." I started looking through my menu, closing my way back and stopping once I was at the tabs for Skills. It took me a moment to read it properly, but once I did I tapped the window labeled «Stats». It seemed that I was at a flat 1 across Strength, Vitality, and Dexterity. At the bottom of the window there was a bar reading #Available Stat Points: 15.#
"Yeah. I'm the highest out of my group right now, but I should be hitting level 6 soon. I had an extra few hours on Day One to train up while everybody else was exploring the Town." He looked back over at my screen, the smile slipping away to show a mix of confoundment and seriousness. "Asasaki, I really need to ask. How did you survive this long?"
"Skill. How do these work?" I motioned at the three stats. While there was a button to go into more detail for them, I prefered hearing a voice rather than reading it on my own.
"Strength is fairly obvious," he responded after a few moments. "That decides how much damage you can deal, the amount of weight you can carry, and there's some rumors going around that it plays a small part in the amount of damage you receive." I stared at the screen, wondering whether I should play this game as if it were real life or if I should play pretend.
"Vitality decides on how much HP you gain per level, but there's also a flat amount of health you gain. It plays a factor in the amount of damage you take as well as influencing how much stuff you can do before feeling fatigue, but that one's just speculation since people with the same stats can feel fatigue at different times." Klein's health bar was around 95% now. If I focused on his bar in the upper left of my vision, at the top of the two man party we had formed, I could see the actual numbers was around 50 less than my max health.
"Dexterity is how quick you can move, how accurate your attacks can be, and the odds of your attacks dealing extra damage, what we call a 'critical strike'. You gain three Stat Points per level, and most people are doing a 3-2-1 point distribution of some kind. Some people like me are planning on using a ratio of three levels for their points so I'll be following a 3-2-4 pattern since I plan on being a front line samurai. I need to be able to take take hits but also make sure mine count."
Mulling his words over, I decided that prioritizing Dexterity wouldn't be a bad idea. Having a relatively even mix of Strength and Vitality would work out as well. I'd probably lump more points into Strength but I might massively boost Vitality every so often if I ended up getting tired out faster than I wanted to.
I immediately dumped around half of my skill points into Dex, putting four into Strength and the remaining three into Vitality. There was a small difference in my body, the sensation registering as a bit more energized as well as slightly lighter.
"I really need to know: if you haven't been able to access your menu, what have you been doing for food and potions?" As Klein spoke, I continued tapping away at my Items menu, utilizing the «Sort» feature. The time I had spent coherent in this world wasn't much compared to my previously insensate state, but it was still enough to get me a handful of meat, fur, tusks, and claws from the boars. The fur I had was significantly less than the rest but that was only due to the minor upgrade I had given to my boots before the incident.
"I ate at restaurants or from stalls. For health, once I fell below 15% I would go back to the Town and listen to a musician." Music in this world, at least from certain people, had the benefits of granting various buffs. Most NPC's had HP Restoration increases, others would give a small movement speed increase, some attack, others debuff resistance. That information had been accidentally discovered during my wanders and later on I ended up trying to distract myself by locating as many musicians as possible. At my last count, there were twelve different instruments, six of which included some form of HP restoration. Compared to potions it was incredibly inefficient, but it was all we had at the time.
"I'm not going to try to respond to that."
I smiled a little, hearing the sullen frown in his voice. "Any particular reason we're going to this village of yours or are we pulling an Everest and climbing it because we can?" I fully closed my interface and started stretching my limbs again, wondering what I'd be able to pull off as my numbers continued to increase. There were a few ideas in mind, things that I could occasionally pull off in real life but with this being a game perhaps I could realize my childhood fantasy of being starring in an action movie.
"Mostly training on the higher levels. There's also a few quests in the village we've heard of that are supposed to hand out some stronger armor and accessories so I'd like to get everybody upgraded." Klein began calling for us to head off again. "Did you want to group up with me or are you fine with the three from before?"
I made a show of stretching my arms above my head, pretending that it was an important decision to me. "Whichever one you think would be best. Unless you tell me otherwise, I basically do my own thing." I moved to his left, taking a few seconds to match my pace with the one made by his annoying long legs.
"Alright then. Dynamm, take point with Asasaki and me." The other bandana wearing member of the group moved to Klein's right, the two leading us through the forest.
"So if nobody remembers this place from the beta, how do you know where we're going?" I asked, habitually looking around.
"Somebody completed a quest line in the city and got a basic map leading to the area. As for the rest of the area, some of the Beta Testers have been selling the current boundaries of the floor to help us newbies out."
Giving a simple hum in response, I sped forward a little to scout ahead. He was far too tense when he said that. Must still be getting used to this whole thing. For me, the threat of death had always been a possibility back in reality. When Kayaba had mentioned that dying in here meant dying in real life I had immediately responded with a groan and an eye roll (not counting the spike of adrenaline at being in an undesirable situation). My companion on the other hand had turned into a blubbering mess who required me to hover around constantly promising his safety.
Fat load of good that did. Movement, by the way.
I held a fist up, hoping they understood the gesture. The previous cacophony of stomping feet and crackling detritus ceased, giving way to barely audible grunts. Once I gained a general idea what was up ahead I made my way back to Klein, keeping my voice low. "Three humanoids. Relatively light in weight based on appearance. Up and to the left." If we had ranged weaponry we could set up a trap, but being stuck with melee our options were extremely limited.
"You feel like leading this one?"
I shifted away from Klein's voice, wondering exactly what he meant by leading. "I'll need somebody to draw their attention. They should wait for my signal before engaging." I moved my right hand to grasp my sword in anticipation. The blade wouldn't be used for my opening move, but the action helped to focus my thoughts.
"Harry, you heard the lady." The shield bearer moved up to our group, following my directions to stay on this side while I moved around to the other. The creatures turned out to be goblins, if their green hues meant anything. One was armed with a dagger, one with a mace, and the other an axe, each one wearing poorly cared for armor made from a mixture of simple hides and metals.
I stepped slightly out from behind a tree, motioning to Harry to move in. Despite my efforts, whether from a mistake or the system telling me no, the Mace user saw me and began shouting in alarm, its attempt to run me through halted by the shield user's battle cry.
Taking advantage of the distraction I rushed in, knocking the goblin away with a flying side kick. Upon landing, I drew my sword and reversed it, smashing the pommel into the dagger goblin's head attacking Harry. For the remaining axe user, only now turning its attention to me, I moved my sword to the left of my waist, letting loose a bottom-top «Slant».
"Engage!" I called out, giving myself to the rush of adrenaline. With Harry providing an opening for a «Vertical», The two of us mercilessly took down our target, providing the finishing blow to one of its comrades as the rest of our group moved in to support us.
"Okay! So you're not the team leader for now." I sheathed my blade as Klein walked over, putting his weapon back into its curved scabbard on his hip. "You can handle a small group, but directions for everybody? I think I'll take care of that for the time being."
"A test then," I stated, holding back a biting retort. A rather spectacular failure, all things considered. We may have taken down the targets, but my objective was to lead, not to take point.
"Yeah. I know you can take care of yourself, but I wanted to see how you could handle others." Truthfully, I could handle my old group quite well thanks to the communications we had were forged and tempered through fire. Being inserted into a new group with which I had no contact or knowledge of might be doable, but to the extent I used to have? Impossible. It didn't help that for the past few months I'd grown used to almost hovering around only a single person, with very little direction needed to be given to the other members of my workplace back in America.
"Alright, guys. Let's keep moving. The village should be another hour or so away." I watched Klein lead on, the group talking a bit amongst themselves before falling into silence. It was admirable, really; the way they tried to act like a military unit. They were comfortable with each other in both conversation and familiarity, each taking up their own role though it may overlap slightly with another. As individuals, they might not accomplish much, but as a whole they could do so much more.
I kept to myself as we travelled, keeping true to my word of doing my own thing unless told otherwise. In the end we didn't encounter anything else aside from a small swarm of «Giant Wasps» Harry and Klein had immediately told us to flee from, eventually arriving at the village.
I'm going to hard argue this place being more of a hamlet than a village. Constructed out of fairly well made wattle and daub, the buildings here were spaced fairly far apart and centered around a rather large stone well.
"Let's split up and talk to the locals." Klein pointed towards a rather large building. "We'll meet up in that Tavern by the end of the hour. Take note of any Quests you come across."
It struck me as interesting how after a time I could hear certain emphasis on given words and terms, though perhaps it was more due to how sensitive one had to be in order to fully hear the language. Certain syllables in the language were very close to one another, and a slip of the tongue could completely change the meaning of a sentence. "And as for us?" I stepped in front of Klein when the others broke off, keeping my back to him as I made another survey of the area.
"We'll be taking a look at the shops. Just window shopping for now, but we might buy some potions. Especially for you!" I turned and stared at him blankly, taking a minor amount of offense at the finger he used to nudge my head.
"Are you offering?" I placed my left hand on my hip, desperately wishing I had a small knife on my belt to rest it on.
"What, are you saying you don't have the cor for it?" I shifted my stance. He gave a sigh. Will admit, sad expressions don't fit him all that well. "Alright, fine. I'll help set you up this time. But you owe me!" The angry look he had could have been impressive were it not for the betraying smirk on his face.
"Yes, master. Oh, thank you, master. Truly, you are the greatest, master." I hip checked him as I circled around, patting his back with my hand to lead. Klein stared at me for a moment before throwing his hands up in dramaticized frustration. We did a quick lap of the hamlet, remarking to each other about the signs we saw. There was an apothecary, what looked to be a blacksmithing building in the distance, a tavern, and a simple store that sold basic supplies. These specifically were made from mud brick, a somewhat odd sight compared to the wood frame and mixed paste of the walls of the rest of the housings.
Klein took that time to explain to me the map function; how you could turn it on to automatically record your surroundings as well as change it so that it would stay open either in the palm of your hand or in the corner of your vision. He also explained where to go back in the main city if you wanted to see if you had map data that had yet to be publicized in order to get some Cor. As he showed the functions he brought us into the Apothecary. A place filled with veritable sandstorm of odours, I crinkled my nose and did my best to desensitize myself.
"Hey, there!" Klein marched up to the front counter, a pleasant smile on his face.
Leaving him to it, I walked over to the simple wooden displays, tuning the conversation out while I read through the vials. The majority of them were health restoration items; minimal things that healed ten health a second for ten seconds and going up to 15 health for twenty seconds (that one cost 200 Cor). On the right hand side there was a set of potions that were preventatives for various status effects that took ten minutes before they activated but lasted thirty.
There were rumors floating around about crystals with instant activation effects but those were exponentially more expensive. When I asked Klein about it offhandedly, he remarked that curative crystals could go for one thousand Cor, while instant health crystals cost at least that, with the price increasing the more health they restored.
A trade window from Klein brought me out of my thoughts. After hesitatingly accepting it, five health potions appeared on the other window alongside two potions for stun, poison, and blindness. "These are on me. You can pay me back later."
I tapped accept and looked at Klein, wondering what was it that let him so willingly help another out. Part of me wanted to pin it on his culture, but considering that in order to escape this world we had to fight to escape, the majority of me felt that he had to have an ulterior motive.
"Once we get back to the tavern and meet up with everybody I'll give you a proper introduction. Like I said earlier, if you feel like staying with us we'll be doing some of the quests they have here. Most of them should be kill quests but there's probably going to be a 'collect an item'. Maybe at the end there might be an escort or delivery quest to bring us somewhere, this place is out of the way enough that it'd make sense for the last quest to bring us somewhere else." The Curved Blade user brought us outside into the blessedly fresh air. Unlike our arrival, a few NPC's were walking around, most of them carrying tools that suggested recently completed work in either the forest or the plains.
Night falls in about an hour or so, doesn't it? While in the normal world some people that worked physical labor would stay out a bit later, it was unconfirmed whether or not monsters spawned much more frequently and with a higher level at night. Considering that it seemed like all of the locals had retired for the night it was safe to assume that bit of gossip was true.
"Took you guys long enough." Issin, a kind of scrawny guy whose hair reminded me of a short paintbrush, stood outside the «Charbroiled Boar». With a nod he headed inside, giving the door a quick shove as he walked through for us to catch.
Guided by Klein to the two tables pushed together, I pulled a seat out for myself beside Choryu, moving the ordering menu flush against the table to the side for the time being. Klein talked a little with everybody before sitting down between Dynamm and Harry One.
"Alright guys. What have we found?" The others took turns speaking up. Like Klein suspected, most of the things they found involved killing a certain amount of creatures. Some of them involved collecting drops, and the duo of Dale and Dynamm managed to find an event that would be available in another day or two. The consensus was that it would be an escort quest to another village.
While they talked, I placed an order for a simple stew and loaf of bread, consuming my meal while they hashed out the details. As they progressed, they each purchased their own meals, slowly turning the conversation to expectations for tomorrow and eventually spitballing hopes and dreams of the far future when we progressed to higher floors.
I miss this.
One by one my squadron headed off to the various places to rest, a small amount of cor being exchanged for usage of the stable or extra room to sleep in. Before I knew it, Klein, Harry One, and myself were still at the table, I having taken my time with the still warm bread while Harry and Klein were going through tomorrow's plan in greater detail.
"Asasaki. Asasaki. Asasaki!"
I blinked out of my thoughts and looked up, staring into Klein's bemused face. "Sorry, what were you saying?" When did Harry leave?
"Tomorrow you'll be with Harry, Dale, and Issin if you want to go out with us." Once I gave my assent, he started speaking again. "Choryu, Kunimitzz, and Dynamm will be part of my group. We'll be splitting up to handle the quests together; for collection quest we'll be aiming to gather enough materials for everybody to turn in and for kill quests we'll be trying to feed kills to the other member of the group to try and save time."
Giving a curt nod I turned to my meal, throwing etiquette out the door and resting my elbows on the table as I finished off my bread. This is Aincrad, right? This isn't the middle east anymore.
"We'll be sharing a room, by the way. There's not enough places left for us to take them by ourselves."
I gave another nod, closing my eyes in an attempt to stave off the encroaching memories. "I'll head over later. Where's it located?" I picked at the rest of the bread, consuming mere fragments at a time.
"It's over on the eastern part of the village, just at the edge of the forest line. Hey, while we're here let me teach you about the Friend section." Klein stood up and moved to my side, sharing his screen with me to teach about the various functions, primarily the Locate feature.
Up to a certain point it would only give a general description of where your friend was. If somebody was in the somewhat distant village of Horunka, that's all the system would explain. Once you got in the same area and within a certain range the system would put a marker on your map showing where they were. Getting there was something you had to do on your own, but at least you had a point to travel to.
With the function explained I slowed down my eating, biding time for him to leave. Eventually the Curved Blade user left for the room we were spending the night at, getting a promise out of me not to wander out by myself.
Shouldn't they be coming through right about now? I've already eaten my entire meal-
They're not here anymore. These guys aren't them.
I waited a few more minutes, focusing on the grain of the wood before slowly standing up and walking out the tavern. By now the sun had fully set, and an artificial sky of stars and a waning moon spread over my head. With a heavy breath I set out of the hamlet, keeping a partial eye on where my feet brought me. Eventually I found a small clearing, where the false lights of the ceiling filtered through the leaves.
In, two, three, four…
I knelt down and methodically rested my sheathed blade against the tree.
Out, two, three four.
"Hey. It's been a while, hasn't it?" I stared at the engraved ivory sheath, brushing off an imagined smudge. "A couple days, if I remember correctly." The sword said nothing, staring at the same twinkling points of electricity as me.. "I'm sorry it took so long, but I'm finally ready to continue."
Another controlled breath. "There's so much we didn't know about, you know? I'm wondering if we actually knew about it, if we'd actually bothered to ask around and experiment with everything, if it would have made a difference." Slowly I blinked, a wetness accompanying the images.
"I'm sorry I let you down. You brought me here, and then when it was my turn to guide you I failed." A pained laugh escaped my mouth. "But I guess," I turned my gaze back to the sword, the original weapon contained within tucked away somewhere in my inventory, "maybe this time we can do this together. Properly." I brought my head to the ground in a deep bow, a soundless absolution leaving my lips.
Please my dear friend, forgive me.
A full reupload of the chapter has been made on June 1st. Original posting approximated on June 16, 2017.