"Oi! Midorin! We need to go!" That was Aki's voice, muffled by the rustling of leaves in the wind.

"One more minnnuttteeeeeee!" A petite voice responded, causing him to sigh and sit.

"She'll never let us leave until she spears something with her bow, will she, Kame?" He asked, looking at a girl with navy blue hair cut just above her shoulders.

"Well... That always has been Midorin, hasn't it?" She said, talking whilst she opened up her inventory. "Perfect, I got all the herbs I need for crafting." She smiled and closed the menu. A dedicated healer in the beta, she had chosen not to change her ways in the real deal. "You know, I never thought I'd be a doctor, yet it seems that this world has made me one."

"Granted, none of us thought that we'd be sword-wielding warriors in real life either, did we?" A tall and well built member of the guild asked, his name, Katsu, displayed in the top left of Aki's screen.

"We'll have hell of a story to tell, won't we?" Aki leaned back, staring at the artificial sun. "God, it's bright out."

"I'M BAAACCCKKKK!" A small female figure burst through the underbrush, faceplanting onto the soft soil. "Look what I got guys! Look what I got!"

Aki turned to look at her, some curiosity piqued within himself wondering if she had actually gotten something valuable. Nope, just a plain old entry level rabbit. He rolled his eyes and body back over and started to stand up. "Does that mean we can go now Midorin? Are you satisfied?"

"Mhm!" Midorin smiled widely, selecting and inserting the rabbit into her inventory. "Now I have the very first stage of the hunting stat. I'm going to provide all of you incapable people with goodies!" She was apparently just a year younger than Aki, yet she gave off the impression that she was just a tall seven year old.

"I hate to break it to you, but all of us have gotten past the third stage of hunting already." An almost equally sized boy said, adjusting his very own quiver as he spoke.

"Awww! Shou! You're always so mean!"

"Mean? How is that mean? I'm just stati-"

"Cause it is!"

"I'm just saying that we're slightly more skilled than you..."

"What did you just say!?"

The going nowhere conversation faded to back of Aki's perception, he was lost in his thoughts. Thoughts about their lives in peril intertwined with the wonder of how they'd tracked everybody down. Well, admittedly, Haruka had found all of them except for Kame, who Aki found attempting to buy healing herbs at the stater shop. She was shockingly unfazed at their situation, almost to the point where it was creepy. Though he saw someone's reaction could be to kick all operations into gear in an attempt to gain the upper hand. This world combined aspects of all for one and survival of the fittest. Depending on the person, they'd choose one or the other, as there was no true middle ground. Someone could change sides, but no one could remain in that middle. Aki chose the former, as reports of player crime had started to circulate, typically acted on loner players with little means to defend themselves. There were even a guild or two filled with only criminals, and if one were to meet their members face to face, they'd very likely stumble upon one with a red indicator around them. Murderers. SAO was unique in the fact that it had a system that would recognize players whom committed crimes, and display them. Green for innocent, orange for mid-level criminals, robbers and the like, and then the aforementioned red for murderers. If this was a game, those indicators would mean very little. Many people play MMOs to act as a villain persona, and were seen as a challenge by players. Something refreshing, fun or exciting. Now however, these normal people who had a few days ago logged in as innocent people with innocent lives, were brutal killers. At least, that was true if Kabaya was telling the truth about the fact that death in the game meant death in real life. If that was just an elaborate lie, one to make an environment that subjects would think it was life or death when it really wasn't, then the murderers were actually saviors. Murderers, saviors. God, what a sick but potentially accurate comparison.

His thoughts were wandering now, as they commonly did. It was hard not to have his thoughts wander, anything to get him out of the present. However, in the present, life was still going on, with Aki being snapped back to virtual reality by the hand of Haruka on his shoulder.

"Oi, Akihiko, we just passed the third town." He gave him a sympathetic look. "You okay?"

"O-Oh.. Yeah, yeah I am. Just thinking..."

"Heh. Aren't we all." He murmured, before turning around and raising his voice. "Alright! We gotta turn back guys, we just missed the turn."

"Reeeh... We have to backtrack?" Midorin started to complain, yet complied nontheless. "We didn't have this much walking yesterday.."

"Once you see this town's inn, I don't think you'll be complaining." Kame stated, looking at the guide book. "Seems as if they've updated it from the beta version. There's a sauna."

"Really!?" Midorin's eyes lit up at that. "Yaaaayyyyy!" She took off in an excitement that could only be fueled by the prospect of sleep.

"Heh... A sauna. Maybe this won't be that bad after all.." He said to himself, before calling to Midorin to wait up. "Won't be that bad after all..."