December 21st, 2022. Aincrad Standard Time: 1647. Current Highest Floor: 4

"The Shrouded Knights guild hall or base, as you like to call it, officially opened on this day forward!" Kenji grinned.

I crossed my arms, peering over at my best friend, who was standing next to me and with whom I had cut the ribbon, a decision I had come to regret.

Ryoma shook his head. "Remind me again why you gave him the honour."

"Because he loves me that much. Isn't that right Hide?" Kenji grinned at me. I sighed in response, returning a facepalm. Past all that commotion, Kenji opened the doors and entered. Not long after, I followed, along with our guild members.

Megumi couldn't help but announce her excitement by lunging her short body towards Ikuno, landing and wrapping herself around her breast area, who squealed a little from the surprise attack.

Despite admiring the interior, Kaede crossed her arms as she walked up to me. "This guild is always so damn noisy..."

"Admit it. You love it."
She faced the other way.
"There's the Kaede I know." I laughed, turning to walk up the stairs, walking through the hallway to the side with the rooms. Earlier, I had marked each room with a tag for everyone to see, so it was easy to find my assigned room. I was at the end of the hallway, which was short anyway, so it didn't matter too much.

Once everyone admired the rest of the hall and had their fun, they had unpacked their stuff, mainly just room decor, to prepare for dinner.

I was the last to arrive at the dinner table.

"Sorry, I'm late. What's for dinner?"
"Ikuno made her famous beef stew!" Megumi threw her arms into the air.
"It's just how I remember it. Delicious."
"Uh, yeah, Zenji, as if it would change out of nowhere. You remember you're in a video game, right?"
"That's it, Ken! You're right!"

Kenji facepalmed.

After dinner, we went to relax in the bathhouse. Well, I had to come out and state the obvious. We had to wait for the females to be done with their turn. It was a shared bathhouse, as the building was just built like that. Only being on the 4th floor with almost two months since the game started didn't help our case, as we didn't have many buildings to pick from. The death toll had already risen to 1,487, which did not look good for us in the long term. Among these deaths, the majority were suicides. Crimes were also beginning to be committed, with guilds devoted to this sort of thing on the horizon already. The lack of a leader on the front lines demotivated players in fighting. All these factors contributed to the slow-progressing of the game.

"Eh, screw waiting! I'm just gonna head to bed. Laters nerds."
"I'm with Ken. Laters."
"I agree and will change courses for tonight."

And then there was one. I sighed and rested my body against the wall, sliding down to sit down. I felt a bit tired. While I wanted to take a bath before bed, my brain had a different train of thought. 'Five minutes' is what I told myself, slowly closing my eyes.

When I opened them up again, someone had already switched the lights off. I looked at the timer next to my health bar, revealing the time of Aincrad to be two in the morning. I yawned, rubbing my eyes as I slowly stood up. There can't be anyone in the bath. Might as well take a quick dip before going to sleep.

I opened the door to the bathhouse, and as I opened my menu to remove my clothes, navigated myself through the darkness to fall into the pool. Luckily, my clothes were off by then. I poked my head out of the surface and shook all the excess water off. As I stood in the tub's corner, I rested both of my arms and my head on the floor, gazing into the ceiling.

"I find it appalling you would even think of jumping into a bath when a lady is still in it."

They didn't see my embarrassing fall, right? Wait, what am I saying, that doesn't matter. I shot my head up, scanning the bath. While in complete darkness, I noticed the silhouette of a tall, yet frightening woman opposite me. My heart had stopped now, metaphorically, of course. Who knew what this woman was capable of?

The moment I closed my eyes to blink, I reopened them to find Kaede standing in front of me. I tried to scream, but she had immediately covered my mouth with her own hand.

"You idiot! You're going to wake the guild up and bring unwanted questions to us. Just relax there in silence, it's dark anyway. I'm confident you can't see anything."

Okay. She's right. I can't see anything, even if I wanted to. I exhaled, which led to her lowering her hand and swimming over to my side.

"I know the lights are off, but you still seem relaxed. I'm sure someone like Megumi in this position would pull out her dagger and slit my throat out."
"Well, are you trying to have a peek?"

If anyone my age saw someone like Kaede and her naked body, it would be an unbelievable dream. For obvious reasons, I couldn't answer with that, and even if I wanted to, she petrified the shit out of me. I kind of wanted to keep my head.

"No."
"Good."

For five minutes, we sat in silence. I remained tense, terrified that she could have a dagger to my neck at any moment if I looked at her. I cleared my throat. No visible reaction from her.

"What?"
"Nothing. You hear? Clearers found the labyrinth yesterday. We're going to fight the next floor boss in two days."
"Are you going to stand in the way again?"
"I'm doing it for your own safety, Kaede. Why can't you see that?"
"I don't want your pity."

In a matter of seconds, she was out of the pool and the bathhouse.

Kaede was an interesting individual. Although her combat skills were impressive, I realised it resulted from her neglecting her own life during fights. Her energy requirements, the opponent's strength, and the state of her body were never an issue; she always ignored all these factors and kept swinging. I did not want to see a player die, especially from my guild, so I always had to stop her. She impressed me with her combat abilities when we faced Illfang, but that only happened because I was there to stop her running in. We then assisted with the second and third boss raids, with me receiving long scoldings from the raid parties about Kaede's tendency in battle. This almost led to us being booted from the front lines. We depended on the funds and XP gain by battling the bosses, so I wished to avoid it.

I just closed my eyes and sighed.