"Congratulations for finishing your 10th contract we have given to you. You really are our best agent out here." The man who sat in front of me said.

"Yeah, I won't be here if you haven't found me, Kikuoka-san." I said to him.

"By the way…" He paused and fixed his glasses.

"You look stunning today. I have never thought you this way. You should wear dresses more." He continued.

I shook my head disagreeing with him.

"Thanks for your compliment but I will only wear dresses on special occasions, Kikuoka-san. And maybe it's because you always come to my house while I was lazing around and without any notice." I said to him.

"Please, it is Seijirou. We have known each other for some time, right? And you thought this dinner is a special occasion? I am surprised." He said calmly.

"I rarely invited into dinner so it's good to think this as one of those special occasions." I replied.

"It's an honor then. You really are showing me a new bright side of the mystery, Hierophant."

Kureha and I teleported to the start point just after the announcement said that the competition has begun. Kureha told me few things about combat which surprisingly easier than I thought as it has bullet circle and bullet line or bullet prediction line which made them less challenging than I wanted. But since the bullet circle hit rather randomly, I really could not do headshots and it greatly lowered my accuracy. I opened my menu after we finished a battle versus some droids just to see if I could customize these myself and it surprisingly peaked Kureha's curiosity.

"What are you doing?" She asked me.

"I am thinking of a possibility to customize the bullet circle settings as it seemed lowers my accuracy." I said honestly.

"It's rare to hear someone said that but who am I to judge. Here, I show you how to disable the guidance system. And surprisingly, you could toggle the system to enable or disable it so you could hit random shots on hip or you could hit more accurate shots on hip." She showed me how that worked.

"Thanks, Kureha. That's a lot of help. Now, let's try to shoot without the guidance system." I said while leading our way to the next room which just like I predicted, full of players who wanted to shot the noob out of their way.

I fired hip shots which was surprisingly done more damage than before since the bullets landed on their head now rather than randomly placed shots. Within a very short time, I and Kureha managed to clear the room from those cocky players who were surprisingly not hard to beat. I looked at Kureha who was catching her breath. She was looking at me in disbelief as I was still standing calm without losing any breath. I remembered that your heartbeat will affects your bullet circle so I waited for her to catch her breath a bit. I took a note that getting over excitement could make your bullet circle larger as it could cause your body release more adrenaline and increased your heart rate so it might be best to stay calm even after you just won over matches.

"Wow, I never knew that you are so talented on handling guns." She said.

"I guess… Since I played those computer games, it felt easier to handle these." I replied as I reloaded the gun.

"Look out!" Suddenly Kureha shouted and then pushed me harshly to the ground face first.

As my head hit the ground, I could see that my health dropped a bit as it was counted as a damage. Kureha sat on my back just to prevent me from getting up quickly. She pulled out her SMG and shoot a few rounds of bullet before I could hear the crackling digitalized sound of something just got killed. I let out a huge sigh before I gave Kureha a gesture to get off from my back.

"Oh, sorry, my bad. And my bad for dropping your health a bit." She quickly stood up and helped me getting up.

"Yeah, sure. It's okay. I almost die there if it's not for you to come to my aid." I said.

"Despite your skills, you still are useless without me, you know?" She gave me a pat on my shoulder.

While I knew she was pretty much right that time, I could not help myself but feel something wrong with Kureha. I knew her from she was little and it was very rare to hear her bragging about herself. I could feel that she had some kind of complex lingering around her words back then. Maybe it was something related to her sister? I heard that she was moving away because her sister got accepted in some high ranking school or something like that. Whatever her cause to say that words, I did not dare to ask her right away. Maybe time will decide when I will ask her about her sister or she will tell me on her own accords. I smiled to her before she could read my mind just looking into my face and lead our way to the next room.

"Wait! It's Itsuki and his goon, Python! With your level, we won't able to beat him. Let's think of something so we could pass him." Kureha said to me while holding me back from walking further.

"Hm? Kureha? Come on out! No need to hide! I won't attack you or your friend. Our goal is same after all." Itsuki shouted at us.

"Our goal? You haven't told me everything." I whispered to Kureha.

"Shhh… Shut up and I will tell you after we walk pass these guys. Right now, it is best to show ourselves to them." Kureha answered me before showing herself to Itsuki and Python.

I followed her lead and showed myself to those guys, too. I tried my best to keep my composure after what happened earlier with me and Itsuki. I saw Itsuki was standing on our way with a guy wearing white soldier uniform who I assumed as Python per Kureha's explanation.

"Okay, I see that you both are here. And I remembered that Maki-kun never met Python, right? This is Python." Itsuki introduced the guy who stood behind him and just nodded to me as an acknowledgment.

"Now, let's make a deal." Itsuki started.

"A deal? What sort of deal?" Kureha asked him.

"There's a strong droid behind this door and I thought it would be a waste of my bullet fighting that droid. If you manage to beat that droid, we will leave you unscratched and go our separate ways. I want to see her skill, you know?" He said while pointing at me.

"No way… That's not fair! Maki-kun is…" Before Kureha could finish her sentence, I tapped her shoulder and stopped her from disagreeing. She looked at me and I gave her an assurance nod.

"Okay. Let me finish that droid for ya. But don't ya dare break our deal." I said and pulled out my gun before storming the room at once.

"Maki-kun!" Kureha shouted as I dashed pass her like a gust of wind.

I ran through the door and found a four legged droid with a rotating head. With ease, I was able to identify where was that droid's weak point. Since that droid had a rotating head, I shooted the droid from hip so it moved its attention to me and showed me its weak point. I fired a barrage of shots at its weak point while it pointed its bullet line onto me. The droid managed to fire a few shots which I dodged easily before my shots made it stunned and downed. I continued to barrage the droid with my shots at ease before its health reached zero and destroyed that droid. After I finished, I quickly reloaded my gun and put the gun away before looking back to Itsuki whose jaw was on the ground. He was looking at me with shock and disbelief.

"So… Now, you know why you should not mess with me." I said to him.

"Are you sure this is your very first time playing VR game? You are very skilled. I know only one person who could dodge bullets like that." Itsuki said to me.

"Yeah, it is her first time. I can't believe it either. Truthfully, her moves are also makes me wonder about that but she certainly has some points that makes her a newbie for this kind of game." Kureha said to him.

"Well, then it is a good decision to leave you be. Now, let's move our separate way, shall we?" Python finally sounded his thoughts.

"Yeah. Since Maki-kun has proven her skills, you two should choose your path first on that intersection. Don't worry. We won't fire from your back." Itsuki said.

"I really can't trust you, can I?" Kureha taunted Itsuki.

I grabbed Kureha's wrist and dragged her as quickly as I could. I could not waste any time more to serve that Itsuki and Kureha certainly needed to explain herself about her real goal into entering this competition. I knew clearly that she did not want to win this but for something else. But right now, I needed to get out from there before Itsuki changed his mind and shoot us for real. I picked the right turn and let Kureha go as we reached out of Itsuki or Python's earshot.

"Now, you owe me some explanations, you know? You clearly are not aiming for victory, right?" I asked her firmly as we continued our stroll.

"Haaaah… I really could not hide anything from you. I knew that quick or slow, you will definitely spot that I am not aiming for victory. Meeting Itsuki there is really out of my prediction. And yeah, he may be nice for letting us go but he is still GGO player so I could not trust him easily." She started to explain.

"My intention of entering this competition is to obtain a very rare item. We have been told that this item is so rare that only one other person who has this item and I heard it is in the hand of the Uncrowned Queen herself. Itsuki probably wanted that rare item, too." She continued.

Ah, I got it why she wanted me as her partner. With me as a more newbie guy around, she thought that I would give her everything including the time if I managed to get the rare item first. No. Kureha is not a person who would like to do that. My previous and current jobs really tainted my views of people, huh? Having no one to trust and no one trusts me surely made me a sour person. I shook my head to make the thoughts gone for good. I really was changing to the worse after what happened in just a few years.

"Something wrong, Maki-kun?" Kureha seemed worry about me.

"I'm sorry, Kureha. I was thinking badly about you. I shouldn't have done that. You are my best friend. Why did I doubt my best friend?" I apologized.

"No need to. I am the one who keeping secrets from you so I am the one to be blamed. Besides, I was the one who ignored all of your chats and messages back then. It must be not hard for you to think me more as a friend who come only for her own benefits. And I..."

"No. Stop." I cut her before she could say more and made me feel wrong.

We stopped our steps and looked at each other. I might had said things that was too harsh for her. Or maybe I was saying things that I should not have said at all. She is a rather sensitive girl after all. Dad once said, always be honest and stick to the truth. But the truth maybe too painful for her.

"We have our own sins and I don't want us to dwell with those too much longer. How about we forgive each other for all of our wrongdoings and keep moving forward?"

Kureha smiled to herself. She looked a little bit calmer than previously. Then, she began to giggle.

"Are you a show off or something? Why did you say something cool like that?" She said while giggling and slapped my back.

"But you are still the nice person I know from our school days. I forgive you, Maki-kun." She continued.

"Yeah. I forgive you, too." I said and gave her a grin.

We finally arrived in front of a mysterious door that had a different texture from other things of this map. The door opened to us and revealed a hallway that led us to a strange room full of consoles and computers. In the middle of that room, there was a deactive transporter or warp gate. Without any warning, Kureha jumped to the consoles and made me a bit startled by her actions. I inspected the warp gate for some kind of way so we could activate the warp gate.

"We should be find a way forward if we fiddle with these consoles." Kureha said.

"And I am very sure, with this!" She exclaimed and pushed a button on the console.

"Wait.. Kureha?"

I saw the teleporter suddenly activates and I was startled by the sudden light of the warp gate. I shielded my eyes before I realized that Kureha actually pushed the right button for activating the warp gate. Kureha turned around and shocked to see the warp gate has been activated.

"Whoah! The warp gate really activated?! Hold on, Maki-kun! I will be right after you so don't move! It's…"

Then I was teleported away.

My body spawned in an unknown huge hall with textures that close enough with that previous room I was teleported from. I looked around for any enemies that could be lurking in this place or maybe a trap planted by other players to slow me down but found none. The only thing I could see was some kind of a capsule that was mysteriously put on a spot that was too much revealing and perfect for an ambush. Since I have no way back, I walked myself across the hall to get close to the capsule even I knew it was dangerous. I walked my steps carefully as I still did not know what to come. As I was getting closer, I could feel that the capsule was inviting me to come.

Finally, I reached close to the capsule. Inside the capsule, I could see a human like figure. I was curious enough to touch the capsule and did so. When I touched the capsule, I felt a little electricity sting and quickly pulled my hand from that capsule.

"Player authentication… Starting master registration"

I could hear a voice booming from this hall's speaker or something like that. It might be the system or something like that. I looked back to the capsule and found that the capsule's glass shone with stream like lights. What have I done? Did I do something wrong? Did it say master registration?

"Username confirmed. Registration complete." Huh? Confirmed? Complete?

Suddenly, the capsule stood up and opened its glass to me. Slowly, the capsule revealed a boy with short white hair and white purple attire. The boy opened his eyes slowly and I could saw his eyes mirroring mine. He has green left eye and silver right eye with a healed scar over it. It was like looking at someone who shockingly have my other eye and I was seeing myself from that eye. My memories flashed before my eyes. I saw my old naive self in him yet I could see all of my pain I endured until now in him. Who is this boy? Then, he rose from his capsule and hovered over it while emitting strange light before he fell. Instinctively, I went forward and reached for him to catch his falling body.

"BANG…!"

I could hear a gunshot and I could feel the bullet passing behind my head. It would have hit me if I was not trying to catch the mysterious boy. It was an ambush just like I predicted earlier.

"Shit, I knew that this is an ambush!" I cursed.

"Oi! Boy! Are you okay?! We need to get the fuck out of here!" I shook the boy who rested on my arms and then I heard it from my back.

I heard something being drawn out and activated from my back. The buzzing sound that resembled a sound from that old science fiction film about space battles between dark and light. The buzz quickly followed by quick steps. By the time I turned around, I saw the enemy in a very close distance. That black clothed man who I saw on lobby. He wielded a purple laser sword and it was ready to slash at any time.

"Sword skill…"

The boy in my arms still half awaken. I quickly put him on the ground.

"Sharp nail!"

I spread my arms and body to the black clothed man. I was ready to face whatever my fate was after being slashed by a skill. But…

"Master?" The boy started to talk from my back and the black clothed man suddenly stopped his move halfway.

"Hey! Stop that! Hold it right there!" I could hear Kureha's voice from a far.

"You might want to rethink about that. You better put your gun down." A female voice followed her suit.

"Huh? Since when did you?" Seemed like Kureha was being held at gunpoint.

"Listen! We don't want to fight!" The black clothed man said, drew back his sword from pointing me, and deactivated the sword.

He turned to where Kureha and the other woman were. I saw the woman who held Kureha at gunpoint. She was the elegant woman who was conversing with the black clothed man I saw in the lobby earlier. He signalled the woman to lower her weapon and the woman obliged to lower her weapon.

"Looks like we didn't make it in time. It's very unfortunate." The man continued.

"Didn't make in time? Make in time for what?" Kureha asked the man as she still in doubt about trusting this man.

"It seems like that ArFa-Sys already picked your friend here as its master."

ArFa-Sys? Master? Eh… EHHHH? WHAT'S GOING ON IN HERE?