Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, in any way, shape or form. Reki Kawahara wrote the original light novels, while A-1 Pictures produced the anime series. I do not claim to own it at all.

Claimer: However, I do own any original characters seen in this story.

Minutes following the encounter with Teckstar and Ancho, Senya and Hitakaru had finally reached the settlement they were looking for - a village called Ignis, something the pair discovered thanks to a sign. Contrasting with the stone buildings and general unappealing aesthetics of Incipien, Ignis had dark brown and dark red coloured houses and other such structures. The roads were paved with a smooth sandstone-like, juxtaposing perfectly with the shadowy buildings. It proved to be a rather nice place to look at.

"Welcome to Ignis, Senya!" Hitakaru started, stretching his hand out for his friend's eyes to focus on the settlement below them as they both stood upon a hill. "It's the second town that the developers designed, according to what I've read on the internet. What do you think?"

"Judging from the name, it appears to be a fire-based town," Senya guessed. "If the previous town was a stone-based town, it is likely that later towns will have some kind of elemental motif."

"Heh, just you wait and see. I want you to experience what kinds of places this game has to offer on your own. I ain't gonna spoil any of it for you," Hitakaru answered. "Anyway, let's get going. I've been meaning to show you what I can do...we were really unlucky when those bullies found us."

Senya remembered. He hated those two, as much as any person would hate another that constantly picks on others for simple amusement.

"I think a quest will do just nicely," the orange haired player brought forth. He advanced into Ignis, with Senya following close behind - they wandered about the town and only seemed to have a purpose when Hitakaru spotted a quest marker on his mini-map, about five minutes after the pair started walking around. After Senya noticed the marker and pointed it out to his less aware friend, they both proceeded to the non-player character owned household that the marker was positioned at, eventually meeting a slightly obese man.

"Goodness! You must be a traveller, correct?" the NPC asked, addressing Hitakaru. This revealed to Senya that NPCs only focus on one player at a time, though the extent of which he was not sure of.

"Yeah, I'm a traveller. You have a problem I need to take care of?" Hitakaru replied.

"I do. You see, my farm has been invaded by a ravenous creature. It appeared the other day and started eating my crops! It's still there now...could you take care of it for me?" the NPC explained.

Hitakaru nodded. "Sure."

"Excellent! My farm is just at the back of my house. Please take care of that creature!" the NPC finished, ending its script. Through his visual perspective, Hitakaru received a notification that informed him the quest had started.

"Alright Senya, follow me. Time for me to show you what a real quest is all about!" He boasted. Hitakaru and Senya then sped out of the abode, around the corner and into the farm, where an incredibly obese dark blue coloured creature was standing, doing nothing else. "I had a feeling it was one of these guys."

"What are these things?" Senya asked, his unfamiliarity with the game showing.

"This thing's called a Snorpal - it likes to sleep and...eat. Don't let the name fool ya, because it's not your pal," Hitakaru explained, using his heads-up display to check the level of the Snorpal. "Level twenty, huh? I guess it's the game's level matching system at work. No problem, Snorpals don't have good defence, so this should be a cinch!"

Senya was doubtful that his friend was going to succeed with the quest. Usually in situations such as these, the cocky one is always shown to be put in their place. It is only a matter of time before Hitakaru succumbs to that trope-like fate.

However, Senya's doubts were quickly cast aside as Hitakaru had eliminated the Snorpal in a single sword slash, something the orange-haired one owes to his incredible strength stats and the Snorpal's less-than-stellar defence stat. Well, I was proven wrong, Senya realised. Hitakaru returned to him once he eliminated the creature.

"Did ya see that?" Hitakaru asked, excited after having proven his worth.

"Yeah...I was surprised to see you succeed so easily," Senya answered. "It seems you're well versed in combat."

"Sure am! You see, even know our levels were the same, it was my knowledge of stats that let me beat that Snorpal pretty easily. You kinda learn this stuff as you go," Hitakaru explained, even though one was not required. "Let's go turn in that quest, see what kinda rewards I get!"

Senya nodded, then began to follow his friend back into the house where Hitakaru began talking to the same obese non-player character as before. "I beat that creature of yours," the higher leveled of the two spoke.

"Excellent! Thank you so much! Here, take these," the NPC replied, doing the animation of giving - after which, Hitakaru received a notification that the quest 'Snorefest' had been completed, with his quest rewards below the main text reading "1000 gold" and "Large Health Potion".

"Awesome, some decent gold and a good potion," Hitakaru noted. "Pretty standard stuff." With that, the two ventured back outside, though Senya seemed to have something on his mind.

"I've had a thought. Hitakaru, you're a melee player, correct?" Senya asked his longtime friend.

Hitakaru nodded. "Yeah. Why you asking?"

"What sort of player should I be? I've gathered there are several types of combat players - I'm just wondering what kind I should be," responded Senya, curiousity clear in his voice.

"Hmm..." Hitakaru paused to think. "I've known you for a long time and you've always been the smart guy. Kinda like the opposite of me, so if I'm a tank...you should be a hit and run type character."

"What might that be?"

"It's a kind of sword player that focuses mainly on Technique and Speed. They rush in a fight, damaging the opponent lightly with awesome speeds, though since they're so fast, they can't really be hit all that much. Their defence tends to be kinda low and their health, too," Hitakaru suggested, shrugging slightly. "I think you'd be a great glass cannon."

"I can understand having a good Speed...but what benefits would Technique bring?" Senya pressed on. "And what sort of weapon should I use? A lance? Longsword? A dagger?"

"Technique gives you a whole load of special skills that'll give you a wider variety of attack methods. It suits the glass cannon type well, especially if they're in a pinch. As for a weapon type...go for short-swords. They're fast, don't require much strength to use and some even boost your speed. That's without enchantments."

"Interesting...there are many different factors that go into a successful combat player, it seems. I'll give the glass cannon type a go, if it really does cater to my preferred style."

"Cool! Now we're done with that...let's go find you a quest!" Hitakaru finished, wandering off to hopefully locate another quest marker on the on-command minimap for his friend to tackle.

10:48 AM - In-game Time

Path to Silvosus Forest

Several minutes later, Senya and Hitakaru found themselves following the eastern path out of Ignis, on the trail of a quest they had found within the town. As they officially departed from Ignis, a player with an obviously high speed stat had shot past them and ran straight into a tree, though as unexpected, the player disappeared. Senya and Hitakaru looked on in confusion, then at each other for a moment.

"What was that?" Hitakaru asked aloud. "Did he use magic?"

"I did not see him do anything, neither did I hear anything. If it were magic, I'm sure there would have been some indication of it," Senya answered. Out of nowhere, he reacted as if he had an idea. "Are there any exploits? Glitches, if you will, that allow this kind of teleportation?"

"I think I've heard something about that on the official forums...but it requires a ton of speed," Hitakaru recalled. "Why ask?"

"Perhaps this player is a speed runner. You mentioned earlier that this game is not-so linear, so they can't be looking to complete the story as per the norm with other games. I theorise that this speed runner may be part of a category, like he needs to complete a certain amount of quests in a certain amount of time, or he's activating a long-winded trick that may very well be game breaking," Senya suggested, walking back and forth as he spoke.

"Probably. I haven't really heard of anyone speed running this game before, though people have been saying that it's impossible to speed run this. Maybe this guy's trying to be the first person to speed run it?" Hitakaru agreed.

"Plausible. We really won't know," Senya nodded. "Let us continue. Maybe we'll hear about this later on."

Shrugging off their suspicions, the two friends strolled over the game's path, towards the forest in the close distance. Once inside, Hitakaru stopped Senya in his tracks.

"What's the matter?" Senya asked his suddenly cautious friend.

Hitakaru said nothing - he only got the Large Health Potion from his inventory out and handed it to Senya. "Your health's still kinda low, isn't it? Take this potion, I won't need it."

"Are you sure?" Senya checked, making sure his friend was not making a mistake. He took the potion happily after Hitakaru nodded, then consumed it, his health increasing back to its current maximum value of ten. Hitakaru consumed a second potion of his, his own health increasing to 16/27. The use of a third, small potion brought his health to twenty six. "I see."

"Told ya I won't need it," Hitakaru proved, smiling.

Senya returned his friend's smile and equipped his Wooden Sword, ready to attack. So my quest is to eliminate five Wasps and bring the stingers that they drop back to that biologist...should be no problem.

Mere minutes had passed - the time it took for the two to come across a colony of Wasp monsters, all of which were level three. As soon as Senya found the group, he ran in and took one out using only two sword slashes, looting its corpse for its stinger afterwards. He repeated this process four more times, until he had all the stingers the quest required for completion.

"That's that," Senya finished. He began walking towards the way he and Hitakaru entered the forest and re-followed the path back to Ignis, in order to truly complete the quest.

11:01 AM - In-game Time

Ignis Town

After returning to Ignis, Senya and Hitakaru immediately went for the building that housed the NPC that the former received the earlier quest from. Once present in front of the middle aged female NPC, Senya brought out the five stingers that she needed, saving the trouble of initiating her script from the very start.

"Ah, you've found them! Thank you for traversing into Silvosus Forest!" the NPC thanked, doing the same animation as the male NPC, the one that gave Hitakaru his quest, did when he was handing over the quest's rewards. Senya's rewards consisted of three Small Health Potions and two hundred gold, along with some experience.

Luckily, this experience combined with the ones gained from killing the Wasps had allowed Senya to level up. The familiar stat increase screen appeared before him. If I want to be a glass cannon, I should focus on Technique and Speed, he remembered, thinking back to his earlier talk with Hitakaru. After thinking for a minute, Senya placed two of his points into Technique and the other three into Speed.

Doing this had caused another notification to appear once Senya had confirmed his points spend-age - he learnt a new skill, one called 'Spin Slicer'. "Interesting. I wonder what this one does?" Senya asked himself, aloud.

Hitakaru smiled, but soon remembered something. "Aw man! I forgot I was gonna show you where to get armour! Come on Senya, follow me!" He rushed out of the house, with Senya following him in a mix of confusion and slight hurry. As they proceeded to a dark red building with a wooden sign attached to it that read 'Armour', an announcement notification appeared before both of them.

"What's this?" Senya asked, confused even further. Too many things were happening at once for him.

"An announcement. These appear whenever," explained Hitakaru. He coughed, then began reading it aloud. "User 'O' is now marked as Wanted. Reward for kill: half the experience you need to level up and five-thousand gold."

"O? Is that really their username? Odd," Senya noticed. "Wait, they're wanted? What does that mean?"

"When the game marks you as Wanted, there's a bounty placed on ya. You can be attacked by anyone without a duel being initialised and once you're killed, you're jailed for an entire day. This only happens if you're either hacking or breaking the game's rules, or both," Hitakaru explained. "I wonder what this O guy did."

As if on cue, the same strange player from earlier sped past the two though this time, he had a red marker above his avatar. Hitakaru knew what this meant.

"He's the Wanted player! He's O!" Hitakaru pointed out. "Come on! Let's beat him down and get that experience and gold!"

"Right!" Senya nodded, rushing ahead alongside Hitakaru.

11:09 AM - In-game Time

Silvosus Forest

O was much faster than them, though Senya and Hitakaru continued to keep him in their sights. The Wanted player entered through Silvosus Forest, not stopping for anyone or anything. Senya and Hitakaru were starting to lose him as his speed picked up a small amount.

"We need some sorta strategy..." Hitakaru stated, becoming slightly tired out.

Senya paused, then asked, "Do you have a long ranged Technique?" His speed stat was a little higher than Hitakaru's, but not by much. "We'll need one to strike him down. We physically cannot keep up with him."

"Nope," Hitakaru shook his head. "But what I can do is..." He equipped his Iron Sword, reeled back his arm and threw the sword, hoping that it would work.

Luckily, it did, and O was knocked to the virtual ground. "Good work! Now run!" Senya ordered, running as fast as his current stats would allow him. Before O could get back up, both Senya and Hitakaru caught up with him, now starting to slash at him with all their strength.

It was evidenced that O spent very little points into his Health and Defence as it did not take long for him to be fully eliminated. Senya was the one to get the final hit in, so the bonuses were given to him.

"Awesome job there, Senya!" Hitakaru complimented. He raised his hand, which was wide open for a high five.

"Thanks, Hitakaru," Senya replied, happily accepting the friendly gesture.

The two shared a smile and turned around to walk back into Ignis, but something prevented them from going any further. More like, somebody.

"You stole my kill...that's not very nice," the female player growled. She was clearly irritated, an expression that her face and tone of voice gave off. She had a lance equipped and was pointing it towards Senya. "I challenge you to a duel. If you win, you'll come with me. If I lose, I'll back off. Do we have a deal?"

"Wait, who even are you?" Hitakaru asked the stranger, equipping his Iron Sword. "I'm not gonna let you hurt my friend."

"I have no interest in you. I only want to fight the one that took down that glitcher," the girl barked, turning to Hitakaru for a brief moment, then turning back to Senya. "So, do you accept?"

Senya paused. What does this person want from me? She's appeared out of nowhere, then randomly asks to fight me. What is her goal? What does she desire? Though, if it's a fight she wants...I have no reason to object, he thought, equipping his Wooden Sword. "I accept."

Author Notes: Sorry for not updating this for about a month. As a gift...here it is. I really don't have anything else :(

Oh well. See you all next chapter!