A/N : Hey guys I know its been a while but I have been busy with Christmas and school and life in general so I apologize for that but anyway here we go,if you desperately want me to update that badly, then just pm me and Ill get directly on it,Remember to review and stuff xx :3,

10th November 2022

We walked down and out of the inn just as we had the past...4...days in Aincrad, it had felt a longer then the mere 4 days it had been, probably due to the extremity of the events that happened in those days, subconsciously I knew that I would be staying in Aincrad a lot longer then a few days; I feared that it would last too long and I would end up making a mistake costing something dearly.

Unfortunately since SAO was an mmo it meant that we wouldn't be leaving for an extremely long time but in the back of my mind I wasn't sure whether that was actually a bad thing or not, you don't normally hear of people "completing an mmo".

I continued down that train of thought and realization past upon me; the longer I was in Aincrad; the longer I had a friend in Chrissy which again brought me back to the topic of whether I wanted to leave or not, sure, I didn't want to die but it adds an adrenaline rush that real life just...lacks, heck, its what drawn me to games in the first place and now with Virtual reality games, its 100 times more of a rush then usual.

I'm aware of how sad that sounds but it was the reality -my reality- as playing video games was my escape from life apart from, the obvious enjoyment. "How long did you think we will be in Aincrad?" I abruptly asked Chrissy, she looked at me with some pity and sadness as she said "do you mean the real end or...the end where we die?"

I smirked and replied softly "the real end, we're not going to die remember?"

She gave me an appreciative smile that made this all worth while "well mmos are normally extremely long to finish but I would say 2-3 years probably" she answered after a slight pause.

I felt somehow...reassured at that answer, I was seriously wondering whether I even cared about getting back to the real world, if I did care about anything though, it was keeping both of us alive but either way I would be spending a lot of time with Chrissy and that's all that mattered to me.

"Okay are we inviting Alex or not?" I said with a laugh, she giggled and replied "hey...I was thinking we could do a side dungeon since they give more loot and the monsters give better Xp, if you want to invite Alex then do it, if you don't then just don't; simple" she said also laughing.

In the end I decided to invite him along as I didn't want him to get under leveled and die because of it, we waited at the exit of the town of beginnings for Alex and he had apparently swapped his rapier for a one handed sword which I recognized as one of the cheaper ones from the towns merchants.

"Hey Alex why did you change your weapon?" I bluntly questioned as he made his way over to us, he took it from the sheath on his waist and swung it about a bit while smirking "I decided to swap it out because I wasn't finding the rapier easy enough for me to use but with this I can slice and dice all day long"

"How can you be so enthusiastic about this situation?" I murmured almost to myself, he replied with the dumbest thing I had heard since putting on the Nervegear; "because I have swag", I face palmed without even realizing it and laughed while Chrissy humorously acted like she didn't know him at all.

I led the way out of the town of beginnings as I explained to Alex what we actually doing "just so you know, we will be doing a side dungeon today and..." I glanced back at him and once again his confident face had disappeared; replaced with an expression of what seemed to be fear.

"But dungeons are harder and dangerous and we might die..." he quietly said, I smirked and pointed out "I thought you didn't care about that? Plus we will get better loot and Xp from it and we might even find the boss room for this floor"

He looked dead at me and said "I thought you cared about that?", my smirk wavered as I thought about it, his words were right but I now had another reason "I did, I still do in fact, but I made a promise to Chrissy here that she would live and I intend to keep it no matter what happens and if I have to I will gladly lay my life down for her" I replied confidently.

His confident look came back as he looked at me appreciatively, Chrissy blushed at my words as she quietly said, "you don't have to say it like that...it makes it sound like you love me or something" she laughed nervously and pushed her blonde hair to one side.

I blushed and turned back towards the road as Alex said "alrighty lets go do this!"

We wandered around looking for anything that resembled a dungeon entrance while decimating everything that stumbled into our paths, I was ridiculously close to leveling up as was Chrissy but unfortunately these monsters were nothing compared to the ones from the night before.

We searched along the road for an hour or two but found nothing as we wound up at the next town "Horunka" was what the sign said, as we explored it I decided to check my guidebook for any info; pulling it out of my inventory and flipping to the part on the first floor.

I found a map of the first floor with points of interest, Alex noticed and asked "whats that your reading?" I looked up from it and said plainly "Its just the guidebook" when I said the guidebook I meant the one you could get for free at the shops in the town of beginnings, "Mine didn't have a map in it like that, is it the first floor?" he continued questioning curiously.

"Yeah it is, wish I checked it before we left, well there is a forest with a dungeon close by so we can..." I stopped and realized it was the forest we had been in before when me and chrissy walked back together, I accidentally blushed while remembering it.

"whats wrong?" Chrissy asked with obvious concern, I looked at her and didn't say anything for a few seconds until I decided to just play it off "ah I just remembered that's the forest we were in before" she seemed to go into deep thought and after a few seconds; blushed as well.

I knew there was a dungeon in the forest because of a cave like drawing at the back of it, it was a short distance west of Horunka so it was worth the time going to it.

We decided to head to the towns shop and buy some Health potions and a Teleportation crystal for each of us, Teleportation crystals were used to escape bad situations by saying the name of a town and then you get teleported there, unfortunately they were extremely expensive costing a thousand Col each, I only had around 2000 because of my night time grinding.

Chrissy bought one as well as Alex, "How much Col have you guys got left?", Chrissy pouted cutely and replied "just under a thousand" Alex looked destroyed by the price as he said "only a few hundred..."

"alright I know where we need to go now, a few minutes west of here is the forest we were in before, at the back of it there is a side dungeon so we will be entering and completing it all in one go" I stated, there shouldn't be a boss in it since its a side dungeon but I still had a funny feeling about it.

I glanced at Chrissy and noticed she was looking at me in a strange way, almost like she was proud of me or something which made me blush and she giggled at me. We started to head towards the forest as I thought about the crystal I had bought, would I even need to use it? I asked myself as I knew that if anyone would need to escape from a stick situation then it would be Chrissy as she had no defense what so ever.

If she...died before she could use it then I knew for sure I definitely wouldn't need it at that point because...well...lets just say I would probably take a dive from the town of beginnings. I glanced at Chrissy and took in that she was still here with me. We stood outside of the forest and readied our items and what not, we all took a deep breath and headed inside.

It was still quite early in the morning so I knew we had enough to time to finish h the dungeon before darkness descended on Aincrad, then I would come back out here and kill zombies and ghosts for hours on end; power leveling myself to crazy heights.

Along the way we chatted about our real lifes and wondered how the other players were doing, I was still unsure whether I preferred real life to SAO, when it came down to it I enjoyed SAO more then my actual life and I had found friends here too.

To be blunt I hated my real life, it was mainly because of school troubles and other such stuff which to people it might seem pathetic, it seemed pathetic to even me sometimes but you can lob a bunch of sayings like "sticks and stones wont break my bones but words cannot hurt me" or some other bullshit similar to that but the fact is; when everyone around you is saying or thinking your worthless, it eventually gets to you, sooner or later you give in and even agree with the people you despise.

In SAO I was away from all the people I loathed and yet...I fight to escape? I looked up at the beautiful blue sky and fluffy clouds that you just wouldn't get in real life, I sighed sadly and Chrissy gave me a sideways glance but said nothing.

We walked through the forest single file so we wouldn't attract a lot of the monsters attention but a few times we were forced to kill a few wolves and nepents but we easily dispatched them as we continued into the forest.

The deeper we got the more vivid the coloration of the trees and bushes became, it was like the forest was made of emeralds which went beautifully with Chrissy eyes that I kept glancing at involuntarily.

Alex was kinda clumsy with his sword and I felt that just wasn't the weapon for him, I was legitimately starting to worry that if he didn't find a weapon he was good with it might cause huge problems later on, it wasn't like I was an expert with a one handed sword either but I could use it pretty efficiently, Chrissy was great with her knives as well but regardless I still worried.

We came upon a small clearing which had an opening into the ground directly in the middle of it, it looked like the mouth of a cave, just slanted into the ground a lot, "this must be the place, right guys?" I asked quickly as to not waste time, Chrissy sighed and sound made me shiver as it sounded so...broken again "Yeah I'm ready" she said quietly, "same here!" exclaimed Alex

I looked at Chrissy and tried to think of something to make her smile "Hey Chrissy?" I asked, "Yeah?" she replied without looking my way, "after this wanna go back to the inn and just rest for the rest of the day and tomorrow if you want?"

This time she looked at me and gave me a broad smile "that would actually be great", "that's what were doing then!" I exclaimed with a smile.

I was about to take a step when a wolf appeared from no where and lunged into my face, pushing me down onto the ground, I couldn't pull my sword out and it proceeded to gash into my throat with its jagged teeth which had a red stain on them, of course I didn't feel any pain but the fear was the same nonetheless, I rolled over on top of it and pummeled its muzzle with my fists until it disappeared into pixels.

I heard a ping and the result screen popped up with a tiny amount of Col and Xp, but underneath that it said "Level Up!", I laughed that I only needed a tiny amount of Xp was all I needed to level up to 6, I turned around to Alex and Chrissy, they both had a look of surprised look on their faces, "whats wrong?" I asked, they both looked at each other and Chrissy said slowly "your expression when you were punching that wolf was...kinda scary"

I allocated my points which gave me 12 strength and 3 Agility, I had 1446 Hp and we descended down into the cavern, ready for what ever Aincrad dared throw at us.