Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, Naruto and Ragnarok Online. I only borrowed the concept and characters from Sword Art Online, the characters from Naruto and the world of Ragnarok Online.

Here's a new chappie. First of all I want to say I really appreciate the reviews. Although it wasn't much, it still motivates me to keep writing and update weekly. Thanks again for your reviews. You all make me a happy writer and when I'm happy I tend to do my work faster. Enjoy.


CHAPTER 7

Naruto is sitting on his futon stretching his hands and yawning. Looking around, the room is very spacious with a heavy influence on traditional Japanese design. At the end of his futon is a breakfast already prepared for him. Beside the meal is an issue of Midgard Daily. "Wow. Breakfast in bed. The system sure knows how to spoil their heroes" said a grinning Naruto while starts digging in his rice and fried fish with some miso soup.

After he had finished his breakfast and read about their exploits through the newspaper, he walked out of his room and headed to Kirito's room just opposite his room. Knocking on his door, Naruto said "Kirito, I will be taking a walk around Payon. See ya later". Hearing a muffled voice from the room, Naruto take it that Kirito knows where he is going and left to see the city a bit. Leaving his quarters, he saw the plaza square where they defeated the bandit boss in front of him. Yes, the Heroes Quarters are in the Palace of Payon.

Walking towards the tunnel, he notice there are NPC guards wearing the typical soldier attire you normally seen in those classic drama. When Naruto approach the tunnel, the guards standing at the opening salute him and greeted "Good morning, Naruto-sama". Ahh… The glory of a hero. All the NPCs in the city will add the "-sama" suffix to all the heroes that survive the Raid. Walking through the tunnel there is another pair of guards standing at the exit of the tunnel. They too greeted Naruto the same way as the guards earlier.

Naruto meanwhile is scratching the back of his head and said to himself "Hehe… I can totally live with this".

Yesterday night, after Ai-chan had teleported away, the customary hero celebration is held. NPC's is seen coming out from the buildings and celebratory dance is performed by them with fireworks decorating the night skies. Every town and city in Midgard had their own unique culture. Payon's culture is similar to a traditional Japanese village. Even the music background theme for the city has an oriental tune to it. However, don't let that traditional village crap fool you. Payon is massive. It is even bigger than Prontera City. However, Payon has less buildings and more greenery. The reason why Payon Raid is so much tougher than Izlude Raid is because a larger city means it's harder to find the boss. The fact is, Izlude is one of the smallest town in Midgard making it one of the easiest Raid event in the game, hence why they consider them the tutorial for Raid events.

Unlike yesterday night where the whole city is empty with only the NPCs seen walking around the streets, today there are more players walking around the city. These players are looking around the city as it is definitely a total change in scenery compared to Prontera and Izlude. Some of the players that recognize him from Midgard Daily even came over to him to congratulate on a job well done.

Naruto made his way to the local Kafra office to sell his current map data and update his own map to check the current progress of the exploration of Midgard. The exploration is expanding, slowly but surely. Now there are already 2 cities and a town freed. So, more players now should have a place to stay now.

His next stop is the weapon and armor shop. There, he sells all the loots he had gathered from the two days of travelling from Prontera to Payon. Of course, for players who want to visit but don't want to spend two days to walk from Prontera and Izlude, they have another option of using the Kafra Teleport Service. That service requires a certain amount of fee depending on the city or town you want to go though it is quite expansive. Of course it needs not to be said that they can only teleport to the city or town that had already been freed.

To be honest, Kirito and Naruto had discussed among themselves and conclude that they can skip every one of the Raid Event till the furthest city they have freed during the beta test except the Payon Raid. The reason is that Payon has the best hero's quest in their opinion although not many beta testers share the same opinion. Furthermore, in Payon, influenced heavily by traditional Japanese culture, they must be accompanied by the one of the Japanese food, ramen. This is Naruto's prime motivator to complete the Payon Raid as soon as possible as the fastest access to the food is sold by vendors in Payon. A faster way to get ramen is to cook it yourself but that is neither here nor there as they don't have the required skill to cook.

Naruto is in one of the ramen restaurant when Kirito calls out to him and took a seat next to him. "I know I will find you here, Naruto"

"Yeah, well… It's ramen. Go figure" replied Naruto inhaling his ramen.

"So, are you going to take the hero's quest?" asked Kirito. Hero's quest is a solo quest only for the players that had participated in the town's Raid can do. They can only do this quest once. Usually one can't fail in the hero's quest as when you died you will respawn and try again later. However since this has become a death game, you will only have one try to complete the quest. In Payon, there are two hero's quests. However, instead of doing both of them, one can only choose one of the quests. Since they had discussed before which quest they want to do, Kirito know which quest Naruto is aiming for.

"Yeah. After I'm done with this bowl of ramen first" replied Naruto still eating his ramen.

"I'll probably finish my quest by late evening. So, dinner when you are done?" asked Kirito

"Sure. We'll just meet up here after we are done with our quest" said Naruto.

"Well, in any case, I'm going to do my quest too. Don't get over your head while doing the quest kay?" said Kirito standing up from his seat.

Looking at Kirito with a serious face, Naruto replied "Yeah… You too" while lifted his fist up.

Knowing what that gesture means, Kirito raised his right fist and bump into Naruto's fist saying "See ya later" and left the restaurant while Naruto continue enjoying his ramen.


With Kirito

Kirito approaches a house near the outskirt of Payon when a man dressed in farmer attire notice he is approaching. Upon seeing Kirito, the old man ran towards him and bowed down before him begging for his help with a yellow exclamation mark on his head. That is the indicator of a quest. That farmer NPC begged "Kirito-sama. Thank God you are here. My son is being haunted by a spirit ever since he returned from a cave. I beg you please, Kirito-sama. Please save my son".

"Alright. I will help you in saving your son" said Kirito to indicate that he accepted that quest.

Hearing Kirito's answer, the exclamation mark on his head disappeared and the farmer said "Thank you Kirito-sama. The spirit is dwelling in the Wailing Cave three miles west from here. The priest had sealed the cave entrance when he heard the spirit is haunting my son. He should be able to unseal the entrance. The priest lives in a temple on the way to the cave." said the NPC.

Kirito then trekked his way to the temple. Entering the temple, there is a priest meditating sitting in lotus style. Without turning to face him, the priest then said "Ah… I have been expecting you, the Payon Hero, Kirito-sama. May I be of assistance?" asked the NPC priest.

The way the quest work, one must give an appropriate response for the quest system of the game to register that you are doing the quest. "Yes. I was told that the entrance to Wailing Cave was sealed. I hear that you can unseal it" answered Kirito.

The priest is silent for awhile, while the system is processing his words to determine the NPC's next response. "I see. The spirit in that cave is very vengeful. I don't think it is wise for anyone to enter that cave."

Now comes the hard part. Unlike some of the easier quest where one just follows the order and complete their objective, some of the quest had a hidden parameter to it. In this particular quest, there is a hidden [convincing] parameter. This is the part where many of the beta testers got stuck and unable to progress in the quest during the beta test. Answers like "I don't care", "I can handle them" or even "I'm here to help a poor child" won't progress. Here you must carefully word your response to 'convince' the priest that you can handle the quest. During the beta test, Kirito was stuck at this challenge for 2 weeks before he can convince the priest and progress.

"I seem to recall that you are expecting me. You know my name before I have even introduced myself. Perhaps I was the one you are waiting for to end the vengeful existence of the spirit and guide the spirit to its peace" answered Kirito like he had rehearsed this line before. During the beta phase, Kirito had to ask every NPC in Payon to collect information for him to deduce what is an appropriate answer.

"Ha-hahaha-hahahahaha. I knew you are the one I'm waiting for. Well said young hero. Use this amulet on the sealed entrance" said the NPC priest handing Kirito an amulet. "That should give you access into the cave. I have been waiting for a hero to guide the misguided spirit back to find her peace. She used to be…" and the priest starts talking about the history of the spirit. After learning or rather in Kirito's case re-learning the history of the spirit, the priest said "Young hero, the spirit being trapped in that caves for so long is accustomed to dark and thus fears fire. Here I bestow upon you, the temple's sacred fire sword, the [Crimson Edge]. Use it to purify the soul of the spirit." said the priest before handing Kirito the crimson bladed sword.

The [Crimson Edge] is the strongest weapons at this stage and perhaps even after 4 months later. This sword will be accompanying him for a very long time. Well given the amount of effort one had to put in, Kirito figured that it is a suitable reward for all the tedious work.

After Kirito left the temple, he gave a sigh before going to complete the quest. Since this is the second time Kirito do the quest, he now understands why not many people like to do this quest. The information the NPCs gave is very vague. It only gives the location, the history of the spirit and its weakness. While during the beta, Kirito had no problem doing this quest as he liked the challenge and facing a little uncertainty makes it more interesting, now is a totally different story. With so few information to go on, there is no way Kirito will do this quest if this is his first time. There is no information regarding the strength of the spirit. Furthermore, gathering the information from the NPCs in Payon is a very tedious work. Payon is not small damn it.

When Kirito reaches the [Wailing Cave], he uses the amulet on the sealed entrance. With a glow, the wall sealing the entrance crumbles. From his memories, fighting the spirit is the quite easy. With a weakness to fire, a normal strike from the [Crimson Edge] will deal a huge amount of damage. While it will be quite an easy fight, Kirito didn't want to take any chances. Not when his life in on the line. Properly checking that he has already equipped the [Crimson Edge] he walked into the [Wailing Cave].

When he entered the cave, he need not find the [Wailing Spirit] as the cave only has one chamber and is actually quite small although there is enough space to move around and fight. At the center of the cave is the spirit. The spirit has bony limbs wearing a dark cloak covering its head. Through the cloak is a skull. Instead of empty eye sockets, the spirit had a black eyeball with a red circle at the center which Kirito assume to be its iris. The spirit floats a feet above the ground as well.

Without wasting anytime, Kirito charged in. The [Crimson Edge] at his right hand, he thrust the sword straight at the spirit. Being hit by the sword, the spirit wailed even louder before floated away from Kirito and starts attacking Kirito with its bony hands.

The battle wasn't that interesting to say the least. Kirito being as cautious as he can evades all the attacks from the spirit before giving the spirit one or two slashes from his [Crimson Edge]. Fighting against AI mobs, rather than attacking them straight on, it is better to evade their attacks and counter them immediately. Rinse and repeat, and the mob will eventually fall. Since the spirit is the only mob in that cave, Kirito take his time evading and countering when he sees a chance. While Kirito can end the battle much faster, he preferred to finish the fight without wasting 1 HP. In this game, HP is your life and he is not about to waste even a sliver of his life when he can help it.

Before long, the, Wailing Spirit finally disintegrate into polygons.

Appearing in front of Kirito is the word 'Congratulations. You have completed Hero's Quest: The Wailing Spirit'.

Then a pop-up menu appears in front of Kirito stating 'You have obtained Coat of Midnight x1.

Kirito grinned when he read the notification menu. 2 quest item in a single quest? Yeah… This is why the quest is totally worth it.


With Naruto

After Naruto had finished eating his ramen, he left the restaurant and headed to start his Hero's quest. He walked for about 15 minutes until he reaches the edge of Payon. This side of Payon is filled with trees and there is a forest nearby. He approaches one of the houses there and walked into the house.

Naruto greeted "Hello" to initiate the event.

The man Naruto assumed to be the man of the house came into view with an exclamation mark on his head. When he saw Naruto, his eyes widen and walked up to him before saying "Thank God you are here Naruto-sama. We are having a problem which I hope you can help us with."

"Sure. What is the problem?" asked Naruto.

The man paused for a moment to process Naruto's reply before the exclamation mark disappears from his head and answered "Recently my livestock have been eaten by some beast from the forest. Usually, the beasts in the forest will avoid where people lives. However this particular beast is very tricky. We have tried to set up traps but that beast cleverly evades all the traps we have set for it. Could Naruto-sama hunt down that beast for us?" asked the NPC.

"No problem" answered Naruto.

"Thank you very much Naruto-sama. The beast seems to be a fox with nine tails. Here, take this as a bait to lure out that fox. The fox is said to have been spotted at a clearance in the woods North West from here" said the NPC.

Naruto then left the house and headed towards the woods. While walking there, Naruto said to himself "You have the bait, you know where it was, why they can't hunt it themselves? Freaking lazy NPCs"

When Naruto reached the mentioned clearing, he opens his item menu and used the bait. The item then appeared at the center of the clearing.

Naruto waited for a minute or two before an orange fox with nine fluffy tails approach the bait from the woods. Before the fox reached the bait, the fox growled at Naruto and glare at Naruto with hostility. Naruto immediately move his hand to the left side of his hips grabbing the hilt of his sword but didn't draw out his sword yet.

The fox then immediately ran towards Naruto. Halfway through, the fox jumped and bare its fangs and claws at Naruto. Timing his attack, Naruto shouted "Iai" and drawing out his sword from his sheath at a very fast speed and at the same time, connect a hit to the incoming fox. [Iai] is a 1 hit technique that requires the players to pull out their sword from their sheath. This is one of the few techniques that have zero delay and is a very powerful technique dealing critical damage no matter where you strike. However this technique is only useful for the opening gambit of a battle as no one will resheath their sword until the battle is over. The fact that one needs to stay stationary to perform this technique limits the use of this technique further.

When Naruto's sword technique hit the fox, the fox flew back from the attack and stumbling on the ground. Capitalizing on his advantage, Naruto move in to do some basic Kendo strikes on the fox. When the fox regain its balance, the fox counter attack by clawing at Naruto's chest. Naruto narrowly blocked the attack using his sword but the fox follow up its attack by swiping its tail at Naruto's feet. Anticipating that tail swipe, Naruto jump back. While Naruto is still on the air, the fox immediately leap towards Naruto trying to sink its claw into Naruto. While Naruto manage to block the first claw, the fox second claw manages to scratch Naruto's chest. Feeling a stinging sensation from that scratch, Naruto grunted. Looking at his injury on his chest, he saw 4 lines of red lines in the shape of a claw mark to signify Naruto indeed had taken some damage although the damage just chipped off a couple of his HP.

Naruto strike and slash while the [Ninetails Fox] claw and bite Naruto for a better part of 5 minutes. While Naruto manage to block most of the fox's attacks there are a few claws and bites that went through Naruto defenses. Although not much, those attack still stings a little. When the fox HP drop to the red zone, Naruto intensify his attacks to end the battle.

When the HP bar of the [Ninetails Fox] reaches zero, instead of shattering into polygons, the sound of rustling leaves could be heard from the woods.

"Please don't kill the fox" shouted a voice from the woods. Coming out from the woods and immediately running towards the fox and shielding it from further harm is a female NPC. "Kurama is not a bad fox. He only goes to out to hunt for the chicken at the village to bring the chicken back to me. Recently my mother is not feeling very well. I was told that a chicken broth will make her feel better. Kurama is only trying to help me" said the female NPC in tears while the fox named Kurama whimpered and licked on the female NPC's tears. "I'll… I'll leave this necklace here if you spare Kurama. Th-This necklace is a family heirloom. It should worth a lot" said the NPC begging Naruto.

Naruto giving a heavy sigh just said "Alright" to end the quest.

Hearing that, the female NPC bows to him and says "Thank you very much, thank you very much" before she get up cradling the fox in her arms and vanish into the woods.

Then there is a 'Congratulations. You have completed Hero's Quest: Ninetailes Hunt' appears at the center of the clearing.

Naruto walked towards the clearing and picked up the necklace [Ninetails Crystal] and put it in his inventory.

Although this is the second time Naruto do this quest, he still felt a little let down for such an end to this quest. This whole quest makes Naruto seems to be the villian instead of the hero. While Naruto can be a little mischievous, he doesn't like hurting those that doesn't deserve it. It goes against the code he learned from Kendo. Yes, even NPCs. "Damn that Kayaba dude making the NPCs so real" is Naruto's thought.

"Man… I'm such an ass" Naruto said to himself. While Naruto didn't like the role he plays in this quest, he doesn't want to miss out in this item either. This is one of the most sought after item during the beta phase after all, and it will be priceless since this will be a one of a kind item as there will be no other heroes to perform this quest. Convincing himself this is just how the story of the quest goes, he walked back to Payon to meet up with Kirito for dinner.


Several hours later

Kirito and Naruto are having their dinner at the ramen restaurant. Throughout their meal, they discussed about their own quest. While both of them heard about each other's quest before, it's always interesting to listen to what they did differently this time. It is halfway through their dinner that both of them receive a surprise visitor.

The visitor wore a hooded cloak with some claw like weapon hanging at her left waist. She has brown eyes and curly auburn hair. The most distinctive feature about her though is the whiskers on her face. "Hi there, how's the 'Twin Heroes' is adjusting to their new found fame?" said the visitor before sitting beside Kirito.

Hearing that title, Kirito face palmed himself while Naruto just gave a hearty laugh. The title 'Twin Heroes' was given by the media when both Kirito and Naruto pull off the Payon Raid with just two players. While the success of the Raid rely heavily on their plan, the media gives more attention to them quoting from the paper '2 heroes single-handedly freed a city', 'fought like masterful swordsman' and the like.

"I don't know what the hell is wrong with the media. How the hell we look like twins? He has black hair and black eyes whereas I'm a blonde with blue eyes. I'm guessing the editor is smoking some crazy shit when he or she wrote this" said Naruto.

Argo laughed at what Naruto had said while Kirito just sighed.

"Argo what brings you here?" asked Kirito.

"Hahaha… Straight to the point Ki-bou. I like it. I want information of course. Everyone now knows the both of you are the only Payon Heroes and every beta testers knew there are two hero's quests in Payon. What I want to know is of course which of the quest the two of you did?" replied Argo.

Kirito slowly place his chopstick down before turning to face Argo "And why should I tell you anything about it?"

"C'mon Ki-bou. Don't do this to me. You have profit a lot from my information right. Do this as favour for me, please" pleaded Argo.

"It's not that I don't want to help you Argo, but if I told you about this, chances are every player interested in the quest items will be hunting us, constantly pestering us to sell the items. I don't want that" explained Kirito.

Knowing she won't be getting anything she tried to ask Naruto to get the information. "Ne… Naruto how about you it? We can exchange some information ya'know. C'mon Hero-kun, how about it?"

Naruto narrowed his eye a while before he saying "All right".

Kirito's eyes widen and Argo clearly was ecstatic as if she had won the jackpot.

Naruto then said "However we want something in return" signifying Kirito is in this too whether he likes it or not.

"The hell you are doing, Naruto" Kirito said internally.

Naruto continued "I want your network Argo".

This surprised both Kirito and Argo.

"You want my network? Aren't you getting ahead of yourself? What did you know about running an information network?" said Argo a little pissed.

"Relax, Argo. What I meant is that I want you to work for us. Any new information we gain during our travels in Midgard, we will give it to you for free and there will be allowance for you too. To support your network mustn't be cheap. The money you have earned from selling your information is just enough for you to barely support the network. Any expansion effort will require you to chip in more money I believe? With your time spent on your network, you won't have enough time to hunt for good weapons and equipment. So, we will give you any good equipment for your effort as well. In return, we want all the information you have gathered" said Naruto.

Argo is contemplating on his proposal. Indeed, running an information network isn't easy. Especially in an open world MMORPG. Having two of the best players in the game to help with supporting her network wasn't a bad idea at all. Having good equipment from these two? That's the icing to the cake. Well, she was very tempted to take the offer. But she had to be clear with something. "So, if I accept your offer, can I still sell information? Information is a two way channel. If you want my network to be effective, I must be willing to sell information as well or else, people won't be coming to me" explain Argo.

"You need not worry. You can run your network the way you like it. You can sell every information you have except mine and Kirito's information. When you are asked about us, just say you don't have the information. That's the only restriction you have. Our welfare is in your best interest after all. So, you wouldn't want your benefactor to be in a pinch I believe" said Naruto trying to convince Argo.

"Let... Let me think about it all right?" said Argo.

"Before you leave Argo, here something as a sign of goodwill" said Naruto and open his trade menu with Argo. Naruto then proceed to give Argo some of the equipment he had. The equipment although wasn't as good as theirs, they are certainly better than most of the average players.

"But I haven't even gave you my reply yet" said Argo.

"Well, just take it. We don't need it. Think of it this way, if we can give away equipment like this, think about what we can give away in the future and you will have the first pick" Naruto said nonchalantly.

After completing the trade, Argo left the restaurant and Kirito impressed with Naruto's sudden brilliance said "You brilliant bastard. Damn you are as sly as your old man, Naruto. Having Argo's network will definitely make things much easier. But from now on, we will have part of our money funneled to support the network" said Kirito.

"C'mon then take it as a motivation for us to grind. Furthermore, we are going to sell the equipment anyway. I believe Argo's information network's total worth will be more than the zeny we will get by selling the equipment anyway. It's a win-win situation. As long as she need us for the network, she wouldn't want to try to find so much info about us anyway. It is not in the interest of Argo to sell our information if she chooses to cooperate with us" Naruto said getting up from his seat with Kirito following him.

Both of them then headed back to the Heroes Quarters to rest after a day of quest. On their way, they kept talking about the prospect of having their own information network although it is by proxy. They kept walking until they reach the entrance to the palace.

Before they walk into the tunnel, they heard a soft voice behind them calling "Naruto-kun?".


A/N: Ta-da. This is a world where normal human are trapped in a VR game. So, there will be no sealed tailed beast. So, I use this method to give Naruto's exclusive access to Kyuubi. If you are worried Naruto will be over powered, well, there no need for it. The power from this equipment will be in the realms of gaming. While Kirito doesn't have powers like Naruto, he is already dual wielding now. Though it is not exclusive to him like in the novel/anime, I still gave him 2 quest items. So, I didn't play favourites.

Then there is the title for them. I feel "Twin Heroes" sounds kinda pretentious but, I not that imaginative as I thought, so I guess you will have to settle for this. I actually delayed my update for this chapter because I have been brainstorming a suitable name for them.

To answer ShadouRyu-kun, yes I'm a RO player. :) I will definitely be putting some of the weapons in RO in this story. There is no job class in my story since I want more freedom for the players. However there will be other 'feature' which will replace the job class. These features will be explained later.

Hmmm. Many people are asking when Hinata and Asuna will be showing up. They will be coming soon. I promise. How soon? Well, you will have to find out by reading the story. Haha.

Once again, don't be shy to drop down one or two reviews. I promise you I won't bite. I did like to hear your opinion of my story.

Till my next update, Zephryc.