As soon as the man had stopped speaking, the sky had once again become a clear blue. I froze as the mirror slid from my hand and shattered onto the ground. The sound of the mirror snapped me out of my shock as I stared at my hand for a moment. My skin had become pale and my hands were shaking visibly, pushing down the fear and panic rising inside me I took and step back, then another before spinning on my heels and sprinting away as the sounds yells and screams of those behind me escalated.
Why? Why the hell do things like this always happen to me!? Maybe it's not chance that these things happen, maybe it's a message that I've got too much blood on my hands and should just give up and die. Maybe I should just kindly go and get myself stepped on by a mini-boss. But, another thought crossed my mind, maybe this is a chance for me, a chance for redemption.
In here I could use my best, and most horrifying, skill to actually save people. Maybe I could use the skill that has defined me for so long, my skill to fight and fight and fight until I'm the last one standing, to help people. It didn't matter how many mobs I killed, they weren't alive, they didn't feel, they don't bleed and bleed and bleed and bleed. Pushing down my hysteria I slipped into the NPC shop that I had gone to on auto pilot and quickly purchased a spare sword and a couple of potions with all my remaining col.
Exiting the shop swiftly I sprinted along the cobblestone streets and narrow alleys of the town of beginnings towards the nearest gate and my first quest target. The quest reward was the anneal blade, the strongest one handed sword obtainable on floor one. I reached the gate and blew past it without a second glance sprinting with all the speed my level 2 character could muster. I had only gone a few hundred meters when a wolf appeared in my path. At level 1 the ‹‹Half-starved wolf›› was an easily defeated monster without slowing down I charged the basic sword skill «Horizontal» and, without missing a beat, mercilessly cleaved through the wolf.
They say there nothing scarier than someone with nothing to lose, nothing to fear. Well I'm one of those someone's, every day in my life before today I smiled and acted happy for the sole purpose of not being a burden, of not hurting my family and the people I know any more than I already have. I have a chance now, I'll become the strongest and clear this damn death game, and while doing it, if I'm lucky, I might just clear a small bit of my conscience. These thought's raced through the back of my mind as I sliced down another wolf and another after that, tearing through my enemies like rice paper.
It took me just over an hour to get to «Horunka village» inside of which was the house where the giver of the quest resided; on the way there I had leveled up dropping most of my stat points into agility and strength and a single point into vitality. I slipped into the house and spoke in a soft tired tone to the Npc that would give out the quest. The quest in question was called the «Secret Medicine of the Forest» After going through the dialogue and then offering my help to gather the ingredient to cure her severely ill child and accepting the quest in a rather flat voice I left the house once again taking off sprinting, taking a quick glance at my health to confirm that, yes it had regenerated while I was getting the quest, before focusing fully on moving forward.
The ingredient I was looking for was called the ‹‹Little Nepent's Ovule›› which was dropped by the level 3 plant type monster known as the ‹‹Little Nepent››. I myself was only level three although I knew the little Nepent's attack patterns fairly well if I accidentally engaged more than one or two I would be in quite bit of trouble although the flip side to this is I would level pretty quickly while killing them. It should be noted that if I accidentally targeted one of the little Nepent's with fruits and hit the red fruit on its head then I would likely die. The fruit on these «little Nepents» acted as a trap which would aggro all nearby little Nepents and even attract some from rather far away.
What I was doing now had a very high level of risk and, as such, I expect that even the most fast moving of the beta testers wouldn't show up for another 2 or 3 hours giving me plenty of time to level up a couple more times and, if I was lucky, get one or more of the «Little Nepent's Ovule». I hoped to get a second one as I could probably get in contact with Argo and get her to auction it 'assuming she wasn't having a breakdown' I though as spike of worry and guilt passed through my heart as I thought about one of my few friends from the beta test.
Sighing I glanced around spotting a «little Nepent» which, unfortunately, did not have a flower on its head. Honestly speaking there was very little about the little Nepent that was little, it was about a meter and a half tall and had a mouth large enough to swallow a person in a bite or two, the «little Nepent» also had two vine-like arms with pointed leaves at the end. As I finished examining my foe I sighed and then dashed forward through the forest towards it charging a «Horizontal» and slicing a few inches below its mouth, taking away a good chunk of it health. I recovered quickly from the almost nonexistent cool down time of the sword skill and jumped back away from the monster as its arms flailed in an incompetent manner before dashing back forwards and renewing my assault weaving through it's a attacks by slipping behind it and cleaving into it with another quick «Horizontal».
A few sword skills later the «little Nepent» exploded into polygons leaving me with a bit of col, a decent amount of XP (for my level anyway) and a some materials for upgrades which were conveniently the some of the ones I needed to upgrade the «Anneal Blade» the first couple of times although I would need a lot more for the upgrade. My health was still in the green hovering around 85% from the glancing blows I had taken from the monster looking around and spotting another «little Nepent» I set off deciding to only rest and let my health restore when it was below 50%
Two hours later and I had netted a couple thousand Col and two more levels now comfortably sitting at level 5. I had decided to forgo vitality in my last two in favor of increasing my damage dealing and movement capacity to let me kill the «little Nepents» faster. This of course meant I had rather high strength and agility stats for a level five but at the same time rather low health. Glancing around the rather dark forest, it was around 9:15 after all, something red caught the corner of my eye causing me to turn. Bingo, meandering around about 50 meters away was a «little Nepent» but that wasn't what made me happy, what made me happy was the large red flower sticking out of the head of the «little Nepent».
Without waiting another second I sprinted at the «little Nepent» charging a quick «Vertical» which I then chained with an upward «Slant» and then a «horizontal» the simple yet effect combo combined with my currently damaged oriented stats easily sheared away about three quarters of the monsters health although it left me frozen for about a second. In that second the «little Nepent» retaliated managing to take out about 10% of my health with a direct hit. After the cool down wore off I finished it off with a quick «horizontal» followed by some non-sword-skill strikes bringing its health to zero and causing it to explode into polygons.
Smirking at the «Little Nepent's Ovule» it had dropped I took a quick look at my map in order to gather my bearings before sprinting off towards «Horunka village» to get my «Anneal blade». It only took me around 10 minutes to get back to the village and another 4 to finish up the dialogue and get the «Anneal blade». As I exited the house I looked around seeing that it was now completely dark and as such I decided to stay in one of the rooms in the small inn that was present in the village. On my way to the inn I stopped by the Npc blacksmith and upped my «Anneal blade» to +2 with the materials I had gotten from the «Little Nepents». Sticking to my idea of mainly aiming towards damage dealing capacity in order to level up as quickly as possible I put both levels into sharpness. While I was there I also sold my old sword although I kept the backup on hand. The inn was only 200 col for a night and I managed to get a room which overlooked the village. Glancing out the window a bit of movement caught my eye and I looked out just in time to see someone enter the house that acted as the starting location for the «Secret Medicine of the Forest».
I frowned lightly, was the person simply starting the quest so they could go straight to hunting tomorrow? It was a bit of a risk to start the quest at night since the «little Nepent» mob became stronger and faster at night making the fruit bearing ones extremely dangerous to anyone under level 6 although I would probably be fine as I had my anneal blade the +2 already making it arguably the best blade currently in circulation.
The player wore a cloak that hid their face left the house before leaving town. I was about to look away when another player appeared out of nowhere leaving a bush next to the house before following the other player.
Then it hit me, the «Hiding skill» the player must have been hidden in the bush, the only question that remains is why.
"Let's see" I mused to myself "the «Secret Medicine of the Forest» quest is relatively well known among beta testers so it wouldn't be surprising if multiple players showed up on the first day, but why would someone hide and wait till someone else left to get the quest. They might just be using the other person to kill off the «little Nepents» hoping the flower would spawn." Suddenly a chill went down my spine as I remembered the other thing the «Secret Medicine of the Forest» had been well known for, an extremely high rate of MPKs. MPKs or Monster player killings was the act of using neutral mobs to kill another player, one method would be, for example, purposefully triggering a «little Nepent» with a fruit to attract monsters to kill another player.
For moment I just stood there frozen before snapping out of my shock "Fuck" I spoke in a rather deadpan voice all thoughts of sleep gone from my head as I sprinted out the of my rented room and down the stairs of the inn "fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck" I cursed repeatedly a bit of hysteria creeping into my voice "it's the first goddamn day and people are already trying to kill each other!? What the hell!" I yelled as I dashed out of the inn towards the direction the two players had run off in.
I didn't have the «tracking» skill yet and although I had planned to obtain it in the future the 2 skill slots I had available were too valuable to use for a support skill as of yet. My current skills were the «One Handed Sword» and the «Parry» skills. The «one handed sword» skill increased my damage and lowered cool down times for one handed swords while «parry» decreased the amount of damage that would bleed through if I blocked with a sword.
While these skills were good for combat they gave me no assistance in the field of tracking people and as such I had to run through the woods through areas where the «little Nepent» mobs spawned randomly hoping I'd get lucky and spot one of the players I was looking for.
"No wait stop!" a frantic voice yelled from the distance.
Without a second thought I began sprinting in the direction of the voice only vaguely noticing the fact that several dozen little Nepents were also moving towards the location of the voice confirming the fact that someone, most likely the potential mpker had triggered one of the trap Nepents. Pushing myself to the max of my rather generous agility stat I kept moving towards the direction of the shout. A few Nepents attempted to block my path but a simple «Horizontal» with my recently upgraded sword proved enough to kill the Nepents easily.
Currently the Nepents stood no chance at killing me if it was one on one, two on one, or even three on one. The only way they could kill me was if they were in a large group like, for example, someone triggering a goddamn fruit trap. My anger spiked again as I cut down a few more Nepents never slowing my pace for even a second. The trees at the very edges of my vision rapidly began becoming blurs as tunnel vision started to set in, only my almost inhuman reflexes allowed me to keep moving at such a rate, preventing the majority of my vision from becoming an indiscernible blur.
In the distance ahead I heard the sound of someone fighting followed by the sound of shattering glass and a barely visible flash of blue light. "I'm almost there just hold on, whoever you are" I muttered to myself as a closed in on the fight.
«Pov switch-?»
This is not good. At the moment those were the only words I could think of to describe my situation. I had managed to make it to the start of the «Secret Medicine of the Forest» quest rather quickly and had hoped to complete it before any other players arrived. While I probably wouldn't actually use the blade I could probably give it to him and then used said gift to guilt him into partying with me for an extended period of time.
By him I mean Kii-bou of course. The full name of his avatar is Kirito and his real name is Kazuto Kirigaya. Of course I really need to make sure he doesn't know that I know his actual name. After all most 14 year old girls are not capable of tracking down a specific person with little to no actual information on them.
From the picture I had seen he has midnight black hair and onyx eyes and is relatively tall but on the thin side. All in all he is the modern epitome of a bishounen, much to my relief, and seemed to match the way he portrayed himself personality wise as well.
Alas I probably have a few more pressing things to think about at the moment, Such as the fact that I was currently running for my life through a dark forest after that asshole had deliberately triggered the trap on the little Nepent and then proceeded to get himself killed since he didn't know the limits of the hiding ability.
I knew I should have leveled more before attempting this damn quest, or at least waited until day light. The reason I hadn't of course was because I wanted to finish this damn quest before Kirito could so I could give him the anneal blade and then convince (read guilt) him to party with me. I came into a clearing only to come face to face with several dozen «Little Nepent» mobs turning around I saw them completely surround me with a few Nepents appearing from where I had just come from.
I was only level 4, good for the first day but not nearly enough to survive a fight with just under 40 «Little Nepent» mobs.
"Is this, could this be the end?" I thought my mind numb.
In my moment of shock one of the «Little Nepent» mob move forward and attacked me. Fortunately I was able to dodge and quickly counter attack cutting through a bit more that a 3rd of its health with a few rapid strikes from my claws. I dodged another strike and then managed to finish it off with a few more attacks before getting on guard rapidly spinning around to trying to a keep as many of the little Nepents as possible in sight as I could.
The rest of the «Little Nepent» mobs converged upon my location sealing my fate. There was no way I would be able to escape this at my level. After everything I had done and all the things I hadn't done I was going to die at the age of 14. Bitterness filled me as the world proved once more that my whole life was destined to be horrible and I would never be happy for any extended period of time.
'No! I don't want to die! There has to be a way to get out of this!' Determination mixed with desperation filled me and sent my mind into overdrive as I rushed towards the point in which the concentration of mobs was lowest hoping to slip through and escape the encirclement.
The group of «Little Nepent» mobs in front of me all attacked in tandem and force me to retreat as the circle of mobs grew smaller and smaller even as more little Nepents filed in from the forest. Just as I was about to give in and go down fighting the sound of shattering glass reached my ears.
"Hold on!" a voice cried from somewhere just outside "Just stay alive I'm going to break the encirclement, get ready to run when I do" this yell was punctuated by the sound of glass shattering and visible blue lights shining in the dark forest.
'This is,' I thought hopefully as I continued dodging attempting to kill mobs in order to move in the direction of the voice 'maybe this isn't the end after all.'
My hope was only increasing the steady sound of mob after mob dying rapidly filled the woods as the unknown player fought his way towards me.
3 mobs shattered only one ring of little Nepents away from me revealing a player wielding what I instantly recognized as the «Anneal Blade», dressed in black clothes and basic gear. The figure dashed forward chaining several sword skills smoothly and cutting down the remaining Nepents in between us before grabbing my arm and essentially dragging me away through the forest and thankfully away from the Nepents.
"Come on keep up we're heading back to the village" the figure told me.
Normally I wouldn't respond to someone telling me what to do but honestly this person had just saved my life and the village sounded really nice right now. The woods were too dark for me to see his face but his voice sounded somewhat familiar. Either way he or at least I assumed the player was male judging by their voice, kept a firm hold on my hand with his left hand as he held onto his sword with his right. And so it was that as he half dragged me through the woods he was also cutting down little Nepents left and right.
"Why are there so many!?" I cried out, and indeed the number of «Little Nepent» was far beyond what triggering a single flower should have drawn.
"When you were in the center of that mob I guess you were too panicked to notice the fact that you actually triggered another of the fruits" the unknown player spoke his voice conveying the urgency of the situation "and even then it seems that the reaction to the fruit has increased, not to mention the sheer number of «Little Nepent» mobs that spawn in the forest."
"What!?" had I really done something that stupid in my panic? Oh geez I swear if this ever when widespread I would lose all respect as an info dealer! In the first place it was dumb of me to even go into the forest in the middle of the night! Looks like I'm going to either not tell my mystery savior my identity or otherwise bribe him not to tell anyone that «Argo the Rat» is actually an idiot who blatantly ignores her own information which tells her that going into the woods to hunt mobs in the middle of the night is a bad idea! After all I can't tell him that it was because I wanted to use the sword to force someone to party with me so I could quickly seduce him since I had a crush on him!
No matter how I put it the situation I'm in makes me look like a yandere! I'm not a yandere, I simply happened to have found the identity of someone I met in a game using minimal clues like the general city he lives in the fact that he's in his last year of middle-school and was a beta tester for «SAO»… Damn… No matter how I look at it I seem to have picked up yandere tendencies! Mou… Kii-bou no matter how I look at it this is your fault and I demand you take responsibility.
«Pov switch-Kirito»
A sudden chill went down my spine for a reason completely unrelated to the little Nepents that were attempting to kill me and the random girl who I was currently dragging through the forest towards the village.
Ah. Let me take a step back and say that I had just successfully reached the girl player who had almost been the victim of the crazy mpker who had tried to kill someone on the first day. I appear to have underestimated the effectiveness of a «+2 Anneal Blade» when in conjunction of my stats which scaled nicely with the blade. This show by the fact that I had efficiently cut down all the little Nepents separating me from the unknown player, who I could easily see was a rather cute girl even if her features were mostly hidden by the darkness.
Hua, what's with this anime like development of rescuing a girl in the woods? Whats next, is she going to turn into a yandere or something?
The moment I thought that the girl behind me sneezed rather adorably as we kept running. How can you sneeze in a «SAO»!? No matter how I look at it that was the legendary «someone is talking about me» sneeze that is common in Japan! Desperately trying to ignore that indication I focus solely on escaping the forest with the questionably yandere (!?) girl who I had just rescued.
After several rather tense minutes we broke out of the forest and began approaching the village a few little Nepents visible as they trailed behind us before giving up as we grew closer to the village. We then crossed the boundary of the village arriving near the small torch lit area
"and safe" I spoke finally relaxing as the village safe zone status effect kicked in meaning it was now impossible for players to take damage as long as they remained inside. Turning around and letting go the girl's hand, which I had been holding for too long in retrospect, I opened my mouth to admonish her for carelessly entering the forest in the middle of the night when she suddenly cried out.
"Kirito!?" she yelled sounding surprised.
What? It seems like I know this person, but wait my avatar now is the same as my real life body unlike in the beta how would they know what I look like!? Could it be she really is a yandere!?
«Pov switch-Argo»
"Kirito!?" I cried out before I could stop myself. The person who had just saved me was none other that my friend and current love interest, not that he was aware, Kirito whose full name was Kazuto Kirigaya which, I reminded myself, is not something I am supposed to know.
"How did you-!?" Kirito cried out clearly surprised that I know his avatar's name despite him never introducing himself.
Thinking quickly I spoke "tehehe so I was right it is you Kii-bou!" I spoke acting as if I had just been guessing at his name earlier
The nickname had an instant effect on Kirito whom responded in shock "Argo!?" he cried out "is that you?"
In response I quickly sent him a friend request which, after confirming my name, he promptly accepts
CHOP
Before I could react Kirito swiftly karate chops my head before yelling out "what were you doing out there at this time idiot!" he says rather harshly "what did you replace your common sense with obscure information and statistics!?" he continues striking a critical hit at me, who is already aware of my immense stupidity, at this rate I'll be known as «that idiot information dealer with no common sense» waah no matter how I look at it «Argo the Rat» is much better.
Kirito sighs "seriously though, I don't have all that many friends and with SAO becoming what it is I don't want to lose any okay?" he says this in a gentle voice.
At his gentle words I suddenly become very grateful for the semi-darkness of the village as my face lights up red. Damn Emulators! I don't need the functionality to blush at the moment so please let me turn it off now!
After Kii-bou's words, which are again a critical hit, I became too unbalanced to retaliate verbally so Kirito easily kept the momentum speaking out again.
"Why are you even doing this quest anyway? The XP reward isn't that good and you don't really gain anything other than the Anneal Blade from it." He asks
"aah" I, who Is really off balance, can only stumble and blurt out the truth "I was going to use it to make you party with me." As soon as the words came out of quickly covered my mouth as my eyes widened.
"Hey!" Kirito says looking startled "how can you so casually admit to the fact that you were attempting to try and force me to be your minion and more than that should you really say that to someone who saved you" he calls out grumpily.
Recovering slightly I make a counter attack quickly while he is off balance "anyway party with me now" I demanded instantly sending him a party invite "You saved me just now and then did something very Kii-bou like and now you have to take responsibility." I stated clearly with conviction
«Pov switch-Kirito»
Her crazy words surprise me greatly and before I can recover she speaks again "anyway party with me now" she demands suddenly sending me a party invite "You saved me just now and then did something very Kii-bou like and now you have to take responsibility." She continues acting as if it's my fault somehow
More than that "Oi, what do you mean Kii-bou like of course I would do something like me, I am me! And beyond that stop calling me Kii-bou it's Kirito! KI-RI-TO! Not Kii-bou!" I cried out desperately
"Take responsibility" she said again "You followed me into the woods and grabbed my hand before dragging me off, holding our panting bodies close! My heart was beating so hard and you're just going to leave now!" she says speaking sadly as if I were a lover who was abandoning her
"Don't describe it like that" I cried "That was necessary because you are an Idiot who goes questing in the middle of the woods at a low level in the middle of the night while inside of a death game!" I defended myself.
She pouted and kept staring at me before saying "here I wanted to give Kii-bou a gift so he would survive in this scary world and now he's being so mean to me, who risked my life trying to make him happy." She said speaking in an exaggerated sad tone.
"Arg, fine just stop, don't spread any weird stories" I relent recognizing my loss.
Jeez this information dealer-Sama(1) really does whatever she wants doesn't she, although I already knew that and am glad she seems to be alright now that this is a death game.
I sigh looking down at the popups and accepting the party invite before looking at the screen showing the items I got while fighting. Since the screen with drops on it is really distracting when in combat item drops down show don't up until the player has been out of combat for a specific amount of time, looking down at the drops I got I can't help but let out a gasp.
«2045 col»
«1065 exp»
«Little Nepent's Ovule» X 3
Really! What is with these drops! I mean I spent hours getting the first Ovule and now the game proceeds to throw 3 of them at me for no reason after a 15 minute run through the woods while not paying attention to what I kill? What the hell is with this!? I can't redo the quest for a least another week and the only function of another sword I can think of would be to sell it and following that logic I might as well sell the ovules instead.
"What's up Kii-bou?" Argo asked noticing my surprise
Words, which are currently failing me, can't describe my current annoyance with the game resulting in me simply setting my item drop menu to visible and showing it to Argo without a single word.
"Urk!" it seems this information dealer-Sama is also quite surprised showing it clearly on her face.
"The hell Kii-bou" she says surprise "how did you get 3 of them after that little run!" she half yells at me.
I give a helpless shrug before saying "no idea and I already completed the quest too"
"So you got 4 of them in the same day? Geez Kii-bou you're as crazy as ever" she says looking at me strangely
"Oi! Stop looking at me with those eyes that say 'this person is a broken character as usual, I wonder how I can profit from it'" I cry out
Argo's eyes widen slightly "I'm impressed" she says "you even got the exact wording Kii-bou" she says brightly "Are you an esper or something?"
So I got the exact wording? No more than that why is she completely agreeing with what I'm saying!? She should at least attempt to deny the fact she was trying to use me as a source of income!
*sigh* Once again this information dealer-Sama does whatever she wants
"Well since you have three extras give me one, as a gift between friends?" she says sweetly
"5000 col" I say harshly and without hesitation causing her to stumble slightly
"But Kii-bou friends aren't supposed to be so stingy with each other you need to learn generosity" Argo admonishes
"So you'll give me free information from now on? That's very nice of you" I respond without missing a beat instantly breaking Argo's composure
Before she could respond I gifted her the ovule and turn towards the hotel "I'll probably need some free info tomorrow Argo but until then we should go to sleep."
Argo's pride will likely force her to give me free info for a while now although if I know her she'll probably find a way to use it to her advantage and even if she doesn't I'll probably start paying her again after a week or two after all that information dealer-Sama works very hard to find important information to help players.
«Pov switch-Argo»
"Well played Kii-bou" I spoke as I watched him walk into the inn before following him into the lobby. I quickly bought a room and as soon as I was inside I allowed myself to relax as I fell into the bed. There is no mistaking the fact that I would have died if Kii-bou hadn't been there meaning I have to level up quickly and not make any more stupid mistakes. I look up to just below my health bar in the top right hand corner of my screen at the name Kirito directly after which is a small green health bar representing the health of my new-found party member.
Geez, now I owe him my life. At this rate I'll definitely do something drastic at some point in the next few months although it's Kii-bou's fault for being an idiot. I hug my pillow tightly as a blush appears on my face as I take my line of thinking a bit too far into the XXX range. This is of course one of the downsides to having a perfect memory, I will remember this particular fantasy for years to come and that's not even counting the ones I've had before this.
"Geez once again this is definitely Kii-bou's fault" I say to myself as I slowly fall asleep.
«Pov switch-Kirito»
I had been getting chills down my spine nonstop for the past few minutes almost like someone is undressing me with their mind although the only person I've met who knows what I look like in game is Argo unless… Oh my god! Is one of the nurses looking after me touching me in weird places? Could this be what they call a sixth sense? No, I don't want to be father before I get out of High school so please stop touching me!
Well the feeling went away soon after that so I think I'm okay for now. Hua of course on the off chance it was Argo I need to make precautions to make sure she really doesn't become a yandere.
"Get away from Kii-bou you bitch!" Argo snarled in her sleep.
Nah that wouldn't happen this is Argo I'm talking about after all she might tease me sometimes but that all in good fun and it doesn't have any meaning behind it, I mean really it's not like she's an obsessive pervert or anything right?
"Kii-bou is an idiot, I love you, and therefore you are mine okay?" Argo mumbled in her sleep "let's go have XXX while XXXXXXX okay?" she continued still fast asleep
What's with this chill running down my spine? Why do I suddenly feel like the biggest danger is to my chastity rather than my life at this point? I mean honestly I think I could hold off one girl rather easily and honestly this isn't an anime how many girls could possibly fall in love with me?
In a hotel inside the town of beginnings three girls sneezed simultaneously. One of them was a young 13 year old girl with her hail drawn back into twin pony tails who is sleeping fitfully inside of a smallish room. The other is an older 15 year old girl with beautiful chestnut hair and hazel eyes sleeping surprisingly heavily inside in a room with a rather large window. The final girl is also 15 and has short brown lying awake in her bed at the moment.
Hunting in the forest a girl with blue hair suddenly sneezes causing the animal she was following to run away before she could shoot it with her starter bow "why the heck am I sneezing? This is a video game!" she complained in an annoyed manner.
A young girl with purple hair around the same age as our protagonist is walking into the front gate of the town of beginnings having just finished grinding for the day when she sneezing heavily "who's talking about me" she grumbles adorably her face showing how adorably tired she is.
All across castle Aincrad and even the real world an almost obscene number of girls sneezed simultaneously. Scientists across the world attempted to find the source of the sneeze while only those among the supernatural world could instantly tell that it marked the awaking of a legendary entity whose power was unfathomable; this entity could only be known as the legendary Harem king of whom stories had spoken of for generations.
At that moment Kirito suddenly felt a massive urge to face palm as if the entire world had just done something completely idiotic.
"Hua, whatever I should get to sleep now" Kirito sighed settling into his bed after a moment of hesitation.
«9 hours later»
It was still relatively early in the morning when our protagonist woke up to the early morning light. Quickly pulling up his equipment menu Kirito replacing his more comfortable sleeping clothes with his basic starter armor which, he reminded himself, he needed to replace as soon as possible. Flipping through a few more pages and toggling a few more options Kirito smirked lightly.
Opening the door to his room he exited intending to get some early morning grinding in before moving to a town in which he could pick up some better armor. Just as he was about to exit a voice spoke out from behind him.
"And just where would you be going oh beloved party member?" the overly sweet voice of a girl asked.
"Ah, well that is…" Kirito fumbled "I wasn't going to go that far, I was just going to get some early morning grinding in y'know?"
"oh of course" Argo continued in a sickly sweet voice "so you weren't thinking of getting some distance before dissolving the party knowing that the notification would probably wake me up and cause me to chase after you if you did it here?"
"N-no I would never do that." Kirito said nervously.
"Then why, if I may ask, do you have the «Display location» option turned off in the friends tab?" Argo continued slowly approaching him like a lion approaching its prey. "I mean it's like you don't want me to know where you are at all times or something." She continued.
Kirito swallowed nervously "no, that's not it." He stated "I must have switched it off accidentally last night while I was fumbling through my menu while half-asleep." Kirito gave his best innocent face to the terrifying information dealer-Sama who was still approaching him in a scary way.
"Oh" Argo replied "if that's all it is than that's alright, but don't make that mistake again Kii-bou" she said her terrifying presence vanishing, much to Kirito's relief.
"Got it" Kirito replied glad she was back to normal.
"Well I'm going to go get some breakfast wait here for me okay" Argo spoke before leaving towards the back of the Inn
Kirito took a deep breath before muttering to himself "What was with that yandere like attitude!? Don't tell me she really is one." He spoke quietly "my god… Aincrad's best informant is a yandere who is currently interested in me…" Kirito spoke shell shocked as the gravity of the situation finally sunk in "shit"
Hey it's been awhile... more than 2 years as it happens. So yeah I'm going to try and get back into writing although i cant tell you how successful i'll be this time around. For those of you who Favorited my first version of this story i apologize for abandoning it and thank you all for your support and will aim to do better this time.
Here is the first chapter of the rewrite for my story The Beaters and we already have some amusing developments including Yandere!Argo. While she won't be a severe yandere she'll definitely have some minor yandere tendencies, as in she won't directly cause others physical harm like a standard yandere but she will use her status as a info dealer to spread embarrassing although not outright harmful information about people who try and keep her away from her beloved Kii-bou.
The problem with first story was that I had no idea where to really take it and am henceforth going to slow down and spend more time on each floor for example I'm going to have Kirito go through the process of meeting Asuna, Yukki, Silica, Lizbeth, Sinon and the others as actually scripted events rather than the rather shitty 'yeah they all just happened to be together' thing I pulled on my first story. He'll meet the rest of his soon-to-be guild on the first few floors but I intend to have him develop his relationship with Argo slightly more before moving on to fighting first floor boss.
Now as for Kirito you might think he's being a little bipolar from his attitude earlier in the chapter to now considering he goes from borderline suicidal to joking with and teasing a friend. This is because Kirito isn't exactly the most mentally stable person at this point but he doesn't show his stress as he's spent years working to perfect his mask of being alright in order to not trouble his family to the extent that he himself sometimes forgets it's a mask. His current mind set is far from healthy as he places very little value on his own life due to past events in his life (which are similar yet different to the ones in my first story) and as such is likely to throw himself into dangerous situations at the drop of a hat when others are in danger even if there's a significant personal risk involved, and I'm not talking about others as in people he knows I'm talking about complete strangers. It would be accurate to say that his tendencies right now are right up there with Emiya Shirou or Kamijou Touma at this point.
(1)For Kirito's internal use of the word Sama in relation to Argo He's referring to her like that since she's essentially doing whatever she wants as if she was a person of really high standing; while the standard usage in japan is respectful Kirito is using it in a more tired and sarcastic yet fond way.