Surprising absolutely no one, guess who has covid! Me! I do! It's gonna suck!
Or at least, I probably do? My immediate roommate just tested positive and the rest of my roommates haven't gotten tested, but are also sick. I'm starting to show symptoms, but they're not as bad as the others. So it's POSSIBLE I don't have it, but I would be very surprised.
(Low-key hoping my test comes back positive—I'm dying for some time off work.)
I miss SAO. Maybe now that I can't work I can rewatch it! Andmaybecatchup, heh.
It's worth noting that the "real life" timeline for Nanakyou matches up with OUR real life, as I'm not going to bother with all the math and planning it would take to match it day-for-day with SAO canon. So everything that's happened for me IRL has also happened for Nanakyou. I took the time to write this just because it's mentioned in-chapter, and I didn't want anyone getting confused. This story is confusing enough as it is.
Chapter 17: The Moonlit Black Cats
"Heeeeelp! Eep!" A voice carried through the halls of the labyrinth.
Glancing at each other to ensure we were both on the same page, Kirito and I sprinted in the direction of the cry.
When we got there, I had to hold back a gasp; were we this far in canon already?
Before us, the Moonlit Black Cats were getting their butts handed to them. They were all low in health, but the one in purple—Tetsuo I think?—looked to be the worst off. He hung back, trying to find a heal item in his menu. This left the others to try to fend off the goblin-mobs. Sachi looked paralyzed, albeit from fear instead of the status effect, and Keita was frantically trying to shout orders and boost morale in their dire situation. The other-two—Ducker and S-something?—were doing most of the work, and not very successfully.
"Nanako, take care of the players! I got the mobs!" Kirito instructed, before jumping into the fray.
"Right!" I jumped between the nearest guild-member, Ducker, and the goblin about to attack him, taking the attack meant for the thief. My health barely fell, going down just a smidgen. Suck it, goblin, I've got that good defense backing me up.
"Bloop, Heal him!" I tossed the indigo slime at the yellow-clad player, who, not knowing what was happening, tried to bat him away. Luckily Bloop was too agile to be swatted, jumping on the player's face, healing him, and then jumping back to me. "Good job little guy!" I cooed.
I got happy bubble noises in response, before Bloop took it upon himself to go refill his stolen health reserves. This meant he latched onto the nearest mob and began draining it's health, unbeknownst to the poor goblin. Bloop had grown since his first battle, going from the size of a grape to a golfball, all the way to being tennis-ball-sized now. Instead of wrapping around my fingers like a ring he now simply engulfed them, resting in my left palm in battle. I was so proud of him.
The remainder of the fight didn't take long, really. Bloop alternated between stealing HP from the mobs and healing the HP of the players, almost without needing to be told. I jumped in the way of any attacks Kirito was too busy with other mobs to prevent, letting Battle Healing keep me in good health. And while I was doing that, Kirito cut through the goblins like a knife through butter. Or a sword through butter, I suppose.
You know, speed and defense was a dumb combination. If you're speedy, why need defense? I understood my original intention was just to have the defense as a fall-back, but what's speed without attack? Or defense without an actual shield? Why should I use myself as a meat-shield when I could get an actual metal one? I mean, a real shield would slow me down, but honestly, I needed to choose one or the other.
Sadly, I was pretty locked into my stats by now. I would just have to make the best of being a speedy nuisance that was tough to kill. Supposedly. Honestly, how in the world did I keep dying? I know I was putting more points into speed than I was defense, but my defense was nothing to sneeze at! Was I just that reckless? Or unskilled?
Bah, I had stopped paying attention. What was going on again?
I tuned back in to find myself jumping between another goblin and Sachi, autopilot having kept me in the fight this entire time. Good lord, you could really tell these weren't the front lines. If I was on autopilot for that long without going below green, then we were on too low a floor.
Kirito cut through the mob I had taken the hit from, completing his goblin-focused slaughter. "Everyone good?" He asked, breathing heavily from adrenaline. Not that you needed to breathe in SAO, but old habits die hard.
"I'm fine," I assured, watching Battle Healing tick my health back to full. Gotta love that OP skill. "Y'all okay?" I asked the guild.
"Y'all?" Asked one of the guild members. Having not gotten official introductions yet, I wasn't sure which. "What are you, a cowgirl?"
"I'm from Texas, thank you. In the United States?" Personally, I hated the whole old western stereotype. I hated western movies, I hated the sepia color theme, I hated the southern accent…I was most definitely a city girl.
"I don't know why that surprises me, but it does." Kirito admitted. "Your Japanese is so fluent; I had no idea."
"Eh, there must be a translation engine," I shrugged. "The only Japanese I know is what I've learned from anime. It sounds like everyone is speaking English to me. Anyway, does anyone need a potion?"
Tetsuo and Sasamaru looked at each other like, "Are we just going to let this go?" But I had already moved on with the conversation.
Keita insisted on treating us to dinner at the local pub, despite our protests. We (or, rather, I) couldn't really afford to be in player-frequented areas, but couldn't very well tell the grateful guild that.
So, here we were, chatting and…enjoying ourselves? Huh.
Looking around, none of the other players were looking at us twice. It didn't change the fact that I could disappear at any moment due to waking up, but at least we weren't causing a riot.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love Kirito, but talking to other people in Aincrad was refreshing. Especially the Moonlit Black Cats; their attitude was so lighthearted in comparison to the front lines.
"So, what level are you?" Keita asked. Ah, here it was.
"Twenty or so," Kirito replied, pointedly looking at me as if to say, 'play along.'
"Same," I did just that. I wasn't even lying, as my level was always the same as Kirito's—it just happened to be a lot higher than twenty.
"Oh, you're about the same level as us then!" Keita looked delighted. "Would you like to join our guild?"
At this, Kirito hesitated, looking at me. No, don't let me be the reason you don't make friends, Mr. Black Swordsman. We'll join this guild, and we'll make sure we save it. I'd saved Coper, after all, hadn't I?
But Diabel wasn't so lucky, was he?
I flinched at the cruel thought. "Sure," I pushed that train of thought to the wayside in favor of answering Keita's question. "We could use some more friends, right?" I nudged Kirito with a lopsided grin. "We can't have just each other and Bloop forever." Bloop made an indignant noise, but relaxed once I poked him a couple times.
"Right," Kirito managed, giving a small grin of his own back.
"Are you dating?" Ducker blurted out. At everyone's appalled looks of 'Dude you don't just ask that!' he faltered, before shrugging sheepishly. "You just seem to be close is all." He tried to recover.
"Nah, Kirito's got his eyes on someone else," I teased. At this, Kirito went red, the system detecting his emotions and emoting them.
"I do not!" Kirito sputtered. Had this been real life, I'm sure he would've choked on his drink.
"Let's see, I think her name starts with A, then has an S, and a U—"
"Nanako!" Kirito pleaded.
"Alright, alright," I relented. "Mr. Schoolboy Crush isn't interested in anyone, apparently."
"Nanako's like a sister to me," Kirito tried to save face. "Besides, she's a bit out of my age range." He grinned, having exacted his revenge.
"Well fuck you too, baby-face!" I retorted, pouting. Once upon a time I thought Kirito was hot shit, but once you hit eighteen you have to let some things go; namely, crushes on characters below eighteen. Plus, he and Asuna were a pretty good match. Even if we had been the same age, I couldn't in good conscience get in the way of that.
"Looks like you'll fit in just fine," Keita smiled. "We all know each other from real life; we're in the computer club at our high school."
Ah, right; I was the only legal adult here. How strange.
Ignoring that last thought like I hadn't just been brutally murdered, I perked up. "Did you do any programming? What language did you use?"
"We've been using Elm for the most part," it was Tetsuo who answered. "But we've also been looking into older computers. I think DOS could be fun."
My face scrunched in confusion. "Elm? I've never heard of that one. When I took programming we learned C++ and Java."
"Aren't those a little outdated?" Sasamaru asked.
I hung my head, pouting. "Okay, I get it, I'm old. I forget that sometimes, but I think that's enough reminders for one sitting."
The guild laughed good-natured-ly at my misery. Well, at least I gave them a good laugh.
A/N: Something I forgot to mention about Kirito's new-found flash-stepping: he has to have his menu open to use it, dividing his attention between hitting the "hide" button and whatever he's fighting. Just thought I'd point that out; the skill is OP, but somewhat impractical.
I had to look up up-and-coming programming languages, since SAO happens a few years from now. Maybe I was exaggerating about Java being outdated, but technology is always advancing, right? Maybe it will be! I don't know as much about programming as I used to, though, so for all I know it already is. Moving on.