Kirito's POV

"Kirito! Kirito! PLEASE HELP ME!"

Copper's hand reaches out for my help, a help that was never given, as the Nepents surround him and I hear the faint sound of the player dying, accompanied by cyan polygons floating upwards. I collapse to my knees as I essentially just let him die, then I see images of Jose and Koharu dying by the same mobs, and me not being able to save them.

"Kirito, why didn't you save me?" Jose asks, his body covered in red slashes that simulate injuries.

"This is all your fault!" Koharu yells her body in a similar state as Jose's.

I start to tear up as all I could mutter is a simple "I'm sorry." as darkness envelops me.

I launch my head up as I realize that all of that was a dream. I sigh in relief as I check the time 6:30 AM, I get off my bed, equip my leather breastplate and Anneal Blade. I take a moment to compose myself before heading to my door and opening it. It's long before anyone would be awake, so I guess I could wait at the tavern. Once there I noticed that Jose was sitting on a chair, wide awake, it took me by surprise. I wonder what woke him up and so I asked.

"Jose?"

He looks up and smiles a bit "hey."

"Why are you awake?" it was a stupid question, I can just assume he was an early bird and that was it, but he chuckles a bit.

"Let's just say my brain likes to wake up my body whenever it wants." he scratches the back of his head rather sheepishly as he continues "Koharu is still asleep, so I guess we wait for her to wake up." I sit down on a nearby seat parallel to him, I want to bring up my concern about having her come with us, but I keep my mouth shut, Jose seems to notice this.

"You good Kirito?"

"Yeah."

Jose furrows his brows and retorts "you sure?" I nod slowly, but it looks like Jose can see right through my lie as he asked in a deadpan voice.

"You don't want Koharu to come along do you?" I just look at Jose in the eyes, pretty much answering that question "I see…...well, either way, she's gotten a little better, and besides I won't let anything happen to her."

I give a cheeky smirk as I respond "ohhh, so you want to protect her because you like her?" Jose raises an eyebrow at this, seeming confused as to why I said that.

"What? No, it's just, well I can't just leave someone behind, not if I have something to do about it." he sounded really genuine about this, a huge contrast from Copper. I chuckle a bit, sure, maybe he was doing this to help her survive, maybe there was more to it, but who knows.

"So the quest I wanna do." Jose began "I wanna do the Elixir Of The Forest." he then looks down at his right hand and clenches it slowly "in order to protect Koharu and other people I encounter I must get even stronger."

I sigh a bit as I completed the quest two days ago and a part of me wants to say no, simply because of what happened between me and Copper, but I push aside those thoughts.

"I can help you." I mutter as Jose looks at me with a face of gratitude.

"Thanks, Kirito."

7:30 AM

Both me and Jose hear the noise of a door opening, we look towards the stairs and see that Koharu is currently walking down them.

"Hey, Koharu!" Jose says with a large amount of enthusiasm. Koharu waves back, I look at the two of them, they both seem to care about one another like they REALLY care about each other. I close my eyes for a bit.

"Welp looks like we're doing Elixir Of The Forest, I'll show you where the NPC is and we will go from there." Koharu looks down a bit, but Jose puts his hand on her shoulder, looking to reassure her. I don't know what happened between these two, but I have a feeling something major happened to Koharu. We go to the location of the quest giver, that being of a house.

Jose's POV

Once in the house an NPC missus approaches me and says "Greetings traveler, are you thirsty by any chance? We don't have food at the moment and I can only provide water." I look at the nearby stove and notice a simmering pot, I accept the cup of water and I hear a child coughing from another room upstairs "oh no!" the missus looks at me and asks

"I have a favor to ask you." I nod as the missus continues "my daughter, Agatha is sick and I need a special flower that comes from a monster, a Little Nepents Ovule, but it's rare to find and the type of monster it is a plant with vines, which are very dangerous for me to fight on my own, so I'm asking you to get it for me and as an award, I will give you my family heirloom." I agreed to take the quest and the navi tells us to go to the forest west of Horunka.

At the forest west of Horunka

Me and Koharu party up with Kirito, the objective was to kill a Little Nepenthes with a flower on the top of its head. However, it was rumored that the spawn rate of this specific mob was extremely low, and so I thought of a plan.

"Alright this is gonna sound very risky, but this is literally what I came up with right now, we head to an area where normal Little Nepenthes spawn and hope that eventually, we will get the one with the flower." I knew it probably wasn't gonna work out all that perfectly, but it was something over nothing. And so went to an area of where Little Nepenthes spawned and we individually went after two Little Nepenthes. I use the skill Rage Spike to strike the first two in front of me. A Nepenthes starts to rush towards me, I prepare myself to use the skill Slant to kill it in one hit, but Koharu leaps into the air and activates a Dagger exclusive skill, Wind Slash, which is a skill in a similar vein to the Rapier skill Linear, with the user being launched at high speeds, but the difference with THIS skill is that the blade is at a reverse grip, the glow is a bright blue instead of magenta and it slashes horizontally instead of the thrusting motion of Linear.

After activating the skill, I watch as Koharu slashes down the vined beast, I was super impressed by how she was able to flawlessly take down that monster and not fall on her face. She turns to me and chuckles a bit, I give the slightly smaller girl a thumbs up, we then turn towards the rest of the Nepenthes, I place my sword on my shoulder, I hear the activation of the sword skill, Sonic Leap, the blade glowed a bright green as I launch towards it and the sword slashes down in a downward motion.

"Koharu! Switch!" I dash back as Koharu activates another sword skill, it looks to be the one-hit skill, Canine, which is a thrusting skill, this one glows a bright orange and she stabs it at the middle of its body.

Koharu's POV

After killing the Little Nepenthes I turn to face Jose, he smiles brightly and I smile back. For a moment we just stare at each other in the eyes, he gets knocked out of his trance-like state "s-sorry." he apologies, a touch of pink marking his face.

Jose's POV

This was the first time I actually stared at a girl in the eyes, I felt super awkward while we looked at each other, I didn't know what to really say after I apologized as I just continued to look for another Little Nepenthes, hopefully, me fighting will get my mind off of it.

"She….looked kinda cute all things considered." I thought to myself.

Koharu's POV

I was kinda expecting Jose to say something, but he doesn't, Kirito then yells.

"Jose! Switch!"

"Got it!"

He moves on as if nothing happened, I shake off this weird feeling I got in my heart.

One hour later.

At this point I have taken down around 30 may be close to 40 Little Nepenthes. And still no sign of the one with the flower on its head. This is what it's like to play an MMORPG, it's very time-consuming, but at the same time, kinda fun, I guess I understand why people enjoy these games as when you finish it's super rewarding.

"Over there!" Kirito exclaims.

"Nice!" Jose responds as I turn to where Kirito is pointing at a Little Nepenthes, with a flower!

Jose charges straight towards it as the space it spawned in had no other mobs, he's sword glows white as he slashes horizontally. The Nepenthes dies in an instant, Jose leaps out of joy as he says

"I got the item!" he begins to laugh out of sheer joy and for a moment I stand there smiling at him, yep he's an idiot.

Back at Horunka Village

Jose gives the NPC the Little Nepents Ovule.

"Thank you so much traveler, as promised I will give my family heirloom." Jose gets a notification as I see the name Anneal Blade. I see that Jose has a subtle smirk as the missus heads up the stairs. Jose faces me and I smile.

"There was supposed to be another NPC." Kirito began "in the beta test, Agatha came down from the stairs and thanked you, but here you have the option to go upstairs." I perk up at this, and I head up the stairs, Jose follows suit and Kirito doesn't for some reason.

Once upstairs we both witness Agatha being cured, she then stares at me and says "thank you." I'm honestly taken aback by this.

"Oh no no, you shouldn't thank me, you should thank him." I point to Jose, he awkwardly smiles as Agatha then chuckles a bit.

"Thank you, both of you."

Jose nods a bit "no problem." Despite him looking happy, I can tell from the look in his eye, that he looked….sad, no he looks as if he misses something, maybe something in the real world?

We both head back down to the first floor and Kirito is waiting.

"Welp, Jose, you got yourself a new weapon, me and Koharu got XP, can't complain right?" Just like Jose, Kirito has a sad look in his eyes, but here there's more guilt and a sense of realization. Jose notices this.

"Hey Kirito?" he says before Kirito leaves "I've been meaning to ask you, why do you look sad? Did something happen?" Kirito sighs before saying.

"In extreme life or death situations…people will do anything to survive…but in certain circumstances, there's no telling what they're capable of." he promptly leaves the house.

Me and Jose stand there, confused as to why he said that, "there's no telling what they're capable of." that sentence echoed in my head several times as I started to question myself.

"Is Jose using me for his own personal gain?" I shake my head a bit. "no, he's helped all this time and he-" my thoughts are cut off by Jose's voice.

"Hey, you alright?" I blink a bit as I stare up at the slightly taller dark chocolate-eyed boy.

"Y-yeah" Jose narrows his eyes a bit.

"You sure?" I nod a bit and for a moment there's silence, we just stare at each other, I was hoping he would say at least something, but he doesn't and he begins to dart his eyes all over the place.

"So um….lets erm...get going." Jose manages to say. Once again looking slightly embarrassed.

Jose's POV

This is the second time I've stared at her, and just like before I felt awkward, I shake off these feelings fairly quickly as we head to the Origin Plains to not only try out my new sword but at the same time level up and hopefully find the Floor 1 boss, minutes, turns into hours and hours turn into days, during that time, I secretly snuck out of the inn to gather monster data, just in case either me or Koharu had to look back on attack patterns or to flat out give it away to other players that might need it.

One week since SAO has trapped everyone

We are currently sitting on a bench, me and Koharu haven't eaten for a week and it's starting to take its toll on us.

"So, um how about lunch?" I asked in an awkward way. She then looks at me in complete disbelief "what?" I ask, as her left eye twitches a bit.

"There's a GODDAMN food system?!" I nervously chuckle as she starts to flail her arms all over the place, and I do have to admit, it's pretty adorable.

"Why is there hunger in VR?!"

"To simulate real-life Koharu!" I say, trying to calm her down, but it doesn't work.

"You're joking? What kinda system is this?! Let me guess if you don't eat you get debuffs right?!" I try my best not to confirm that and at the same time not completely fall to the ground laughing.

We both hear giggling to our right, I turn to see a girl who looks to be smaller than Koharu. She has shoulder-length black hair, a pair of dark blue eyes, a blue shirt with a leather breastplate, a dark blue skirt that goes down to her knees, and black shoes.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh." the girl said "it's just, this is the first time anyone has said anything that isn't about monsters, questing…...and players dying." she looks down a bit, as Koharu responds passively.

"Oh, well I'm Koharu and this is my friend, Jose." the girl in blue smiles a bit.

"I'm Sachi." Sachi pulls out a bag "you guys said that you were hungry right?" I nod and so does Koharu, but she does so VERY reluctantly. Sachi gives us the bag, inside are sandwiches, both me and Koharu got one and finished them quickly.

"I was gonna give this to my friends, but they're not back yet and the food is gonna expire soon." muttered Sachi

Koharu then asks "where are your friends?" Sachi looks down, seeming to doubt herself.

"They're trying to get me a weapon, but I didn't come along, because...I'm a coward and a burden to them." Koharu hugs Sachi.

"You're not a burden Sachi." Koharu says as she holds Sachi at arm's length.

"It's only natural for people to be afraid, especially in a game like SAO." Sachi gives a soft smile to Koharu.

"Are you scared Koharu?" asked Sachi, Koharu nods almost immediately.

"Yeah, of course, I can't handle it alone, that's why I have a friend to cheer me up." she then looks at me and smiles gently, at this point I've grown used to her staring at me. Koharu then looks back at Sachi "and you have your friends to cheer you up, and they're doing all they can so you can survive."

"Thank you, Koharu."

With food in her mouth, Koharu asks "so is there anything we can help?" Sachi thinks for a moment.

"My friends are having trouble hunting monsters."

Koharu claps both of her hands together "we can gather the information!" I raise an eyebrow at this.

"I didn't agree to this."

"Well it's to thank her for the sandwiches riiight?" she says with a wink.

"Well, we don't have to do all that much fighting actually." Koharu tilts her head in a cute fashion as I continue. "Weeeellll, let's just say I snuck out of the inn and gathered all sorts of monster data, from the wild boar to the Croco beast."

Koharu's POV

At that moment I stared at Jose, in admiration, he was secretly getting data so it could benefit us and was willing to give it away to other players, this washed away any doubt I had on him using me for personal gain.

Jose's POV

Koharu continued to stare at me, it was actually starting to get a little embarrassing, so I snapped my fingers in front of her face, after I did that it brought her back to reality. Her face turned a tad shade of pink once she realized that she stared at me for too long. I shake my head as I turn to face Sachi, who looks puzzled.

"Are you sure this is OK?" she says, with heavy epithets in the ok. I nod.

"Yeah, just take it, I can always get the data again, and maybe with some help." I glance at Koharu for a moment but turn my gaze back to Sachi.

"Thank you, Jose." a small smile emerges from my face as I hear another voice.

"Hey Sachi, we're back." called out the male voice, I turn my head to where the voice originated and it was four guys, one whore all purple, has ash brown hair, a pair of brown eyes, he had a mace on his hip and a shield on his back, the one to his right wore all green, he has shoulder-length brown hair, a pair green eyes and had a spear, another in yellow, had blonde hair, a pair of blue eyes, he seems to have a dagger, but I'm not too sure, and finally the one whom I assumed was the person who called out Sachi's name, wore all maroon/reddish-brown, has dark, short brown and had a staff.

"H-hey Keita." Sachi responds meekly, Ketia steps forward and says in a mocking/sarcastic way.

"Why the long face?" Sachi pouts a bit which makes everyone (but me and Koharu) chuckle.

Ketia faces me "so you're a new friend of Sachi's?" I shrug as Koharu nods confidently.

"Yep!"

"Thought so, well, thanks for watching over her, I guess." thanked Keita. Right before they leave, however, Sachi gives them the book that has the monster data, she then points at me.

"He got all this data and gave it away to me so it can help you guys." Keita's eyes widen to a certain degree as he smiles in a gentle manner.

"Thanks man." I nod a bit.

"Sure thing." It was a weird thing to respond to a thanks man, as I had slightly panicked during that time. They all promptly leave, Koharu then speaks up.

"Think we'll see them again?" I snort a bit.

"Yeah, I know we will." I then hear footsteps and clapping, I turn around and it's another male player, he's taller than me, has dyed blue hair, blue eyes, he hairs a blue cloak, a leather breastplate, white baggy pants, brown boots, a short sword on his side and white shield with an emblem of a sword in the middle.

"You two did amazing, instead of hoarding the data for yourselves, you're willing to give it away to other players who need it." I raise an eyebrow at this mysterious person.

"And you are?" the blue-haired player blinks a little.

"Oh, sorry, I'm Diaval, nice to meet you." he extends his hand towards me.

"Ah, I'm Jose and this is my partner, Koharu." Koharu waves as Diaval nods.

"Nice to meet you both, I'm currently trying to find the floor one boss, and I can appreciate it if you helped me, even if it's spreading the word."

"We can definitely try, but I can't guarantee that we'll be all that much help." Diaval holds up his hand.

"It's fine, just as long as you're trying that's fine, well have a good day you two, I'll see you whenever we find the floor boss." I cross my arms.

"Where do we even start? I doubt it's at its original spawn area of the beta."

"Who knows, but we have to try!" Koharu says with great enthusiasm.

December 2th, 2022

Koharu's POV

Almost one month has passed and no one has yet to find the boss room, moreover, 2,000 players have already died. During that month, however, me and Jose encountered a female player wielding a rapier and wearing a red hood. We tried helping her when we encountered her in the dungeons, but she ignored us. I wonder if she's alright. Our gear also changed during that time too, my tunic changed from the light ash brown to dark magenta with some parts of it being green on the neck and wrist portions, my skirt is now black, the color of my belt is red and my leather chest plate is changed out for a silver one, the same goes for Jose with his armor, everything else is unchanged. Currently, we are at the final town, Tolbana, which is surrounded by a large white wall, the town itself has 3-5 inns, a plaza that has a fountain in the middle, multiple restaurants, and other houses that NPC inhabits. It's 12:20 PM, both me and Jose are currently eating something at a restaurant, it's nothing too special, just stew and a potato. Out of the corner of my ear, I hear one of the players mutter something.

"You're kidding right?" one of them says.

"Nope, they actually found the boss room, apparently there was an unknown player that gave them a location, but they couldn't see his face, all that they could say that he wore a red robe." the other responds. Jose gets out of his seat and walks towards them.

"Hey, um you said that players found the floor one?" he asks.

"Yeah." the person in question says, before continuing "the meeting will start at 2:45 PM, and I believe that it's being held at the Tolbana Amphitheater."

"Thank you for giving me this information." Jose responds.

He heads back to our table and we both finish our lunch.

At the Tolbana Amphitheater, 2:40 PM

The amphitheater was not packed by any stretch of the imagination, but I was surprised that around 40 or so players were here. I glanced over and saw Kirito and that red hooded girl, so she was alive after all. Me and Jose took our respective seats at the theater, that being the third row in the middle of the stage, then Diaval began his speech.

"Greetings everyone! Thank you for heading my call! You are truly the top players of SAO, my name is Diaval and I assign myself the job as a knight." almost everyone begins to laugh at this, but Diaval calms them down.

"Now that everyone has had their fun, we'll get to the issu-'' he is interrupted by another player.

"HOLD ON FOR A MINUTE!" We all turned to see a male player with light brown scale armor, pants, and boots, he has extremely spiky orange hair, a goatee and had a One-Handed sword on his back. He jumps down the steps and lands beside Diaval.

"Name's Kibaou got that?!" he exclaims before facing Diaval "you know about the 2,000 players that have died right?" Diaval nods in confusion as Kibaou continues his rant "some of you have to apologize for what happened!" Everyone is confused by what he means before Diaval responds in a more serious tone.

"You're talking about the ex beta testers right?" Kibaou nods aggressively.

"Yeah! They left us behind and took all the best hunting spots and quests! Ignoring us in the process, like we're nothing! So in compensation, they should reveal themselves and give all of their loot away to us!."

Jose's POV

The other players started to look at each other, some of them looked at me and Koharu, I felt my blood boil at this. I knew for a fact that what Kibaou was saying was wrong, hell a part of me was contemplating on revealing myself as a former beta tester to show that what Kibaou said is false. But then a dark-skinned player raises his hand.

"Hey, names Agil can I say something?" Agil promptly stands up, he looks to be a giant of a man, maybe standing at 6ft 4, not only that he is wielding a Two-Handed axe, he then questions Kibaou. "So you're saying that the beta testers should give up their earnings just due to the fact they have the advantage right?" Kibaou looks offended by this.

"Yeah!"

Agil pulls out a book, more specifically a guide. "Does everyone have this book?" everyone nods, Agil takes a moment before asking Kibaou another question "and do you know who made this?"

"N-no." Kibaou mutters, clearly intimidated by Agil.

"Well, then." Agil continues, "the beta testers did, this book is filled with tips on defeating monsters. Everyone has equal access to this information, even so, people still died, the beta testers did all they could." he then looks at Kibaou in the eyes and in a cold tone says "I'm not here to point fingers at people, I'm here to beat this boss and eventually escape this godforsaken game." Kibaou scoffs before heading back to the seats and Agil follows suit. Diaval continues what he was gonna say prior to being interrupted.

"Alright as Agil has stated, the latest issue of guide book has the boss information." Diaval opens the book and begins to explain the boss. "It's name is Illfang The Kobold Lord. The book says that he uses an axe and buckler, he also spawns in its supporters, The Kobold Sentinels, once in the red zone, he'll switch from his axe and buckler to a sword type weapon called a talwar, the guide recommends that we surround it and finish it off." Diaval looks around awkwardly.

"Okay, looks there's 30 of us, we'll make use of what we got, everyone, form up to groups of 2-6 alright." Almost everyone forms their own parties, aside from me and Koharu, as we have been partied up since the beginning. Diaval then says "okay, looks like everyone is partied up." He glances down a bit "we'll talk about formations and attacks tomorrow at 12:30 PM, but now we celebrate the discovery of floor one!" Everyone is dismissed, all but me and Koharu.

"You both are ex beta testers aren't you?" Asked Diaval. I nonchalantly nod.

"Yeah."

"Thought so, well here's the thing, so am I, I've been to floors higher than floor 2 and what Kibaou said was true, I should've stayed and helped the newer players, but I knew that I couldn't protect everyone, and I thought what if I saved someone and someone else died." He looks up in determination "and so I decided to unite all the top players, clear this floor and the next one and the one after that, I want to lead everyone into victory over all 100 floors, beat the game and save everyone." I admire what Diaval was doing and in response I say.

"You're willing to bear the burden of being a leader, I have to say that's quite admirable, Diaval."

"Yeah." Koharu agreed.

"I appreciate the kind words, I'll use them as motivation, now let us head to town and celebrate."

Me and Koharu agreed and headed out of the amphitheater. It's already a huge crowd, it's not just people from the clearing squad, but other players, hell even NPC's were celebrating as well, the celebration went long into the night, me and Koharu sat a little ways away from the party, we both have our respective drinks, we then see Kirito and The red hooded girl sitting much farther away at the steps of stairs. We approach them.

"Hey Kirito, long time no see eh?" I ask in a very awkward way as it was a long time since I saw him. Kirito nods a bit.

"Yeah." Muttered Kirito, I glanced over to his partner.

"And you, what's your name?" The red hooded girl looks up a bit, I can see her hazel eyes and chestnut hair. Koharu then continues what I was gonna say.

"I'm Koharu and this is Jose." She says happily, I let out a small chuckle and Koharu glares at me, I guess it's supposed to intimidate me, but it makes her look a little cuter.

"Asuna." The red hooded girl silently says.

"Asuna." I echo back. It's yet another somewhat simple name to remember. After a bit of silence, we leave the two alone as we both head back to the inn, Koharu doesn't even bother to take off her armor as she collapses onto her bed, I put on the covers for her. I sit down on a desk near the foot of the beds, I look out the window and see the stars that fill this world, or at least the ceiling of the first floor and for a moment I forget that this is a death game, then I remember the trivial moments in my life, my family. I miss those moments so much.

"I'm so sorry, mom, dad, Jemia, everyone." Tears start to form in my eyes, I hold in my cries, as to not accidentally wake up Koharu "if only I didn't log in, you likely wouldn't be feeling the intense stress you're all facing right now." I apologize to everyone in my family, the little friends I had in real life, if I were to die, the amount of pain it would cause them would be too much for them, especially my mother and father. I take a deep breath as tears start dropping from my face and onto the desk.

Koharu's POV

I overheard Jose crying, I wanted to comfort him right now, to show that it's alright, but I couldn't as I was trying my best to not cry as well. I wanted to hug him, but I couldn't.

He eventually stopped crying and I heard him walking over to my bed as he said.

"I guess protecting you is all that matters now." I felt my heart flutter a bit. He heads out of the room, I assume it's to clear his mind, I slowly close my eyes and finally fall asleep.

The next day 9:45 AM

What Jose last night stuck with me throughout my sleep, his objective now is to protect me, not to make sure he survives by himself, out those two, surviving by himself was the easier option as he can just stay in the safe zone and just wait it out, so why was he going out of his way to protect me of all people? Either way, if he was gonna protect me, I might as well protect him.

Jose's POV

In order to make sure I stay as myself, I had to give myself another reason to fight and Koharu was that other reason, not only that she's also my friend and I'm not willing to leave behind a friend.

Koharu's POV

The meeting for the boss wasn't gonna start in another few hours and so I decided to ask Jose something.

"Hey, Jose?" He glances at me.

"Yeah what's up?"

Remember when we did the quest to get your Anneal Blade?" Jose nods slowly, not knowing where this is going.

"Yes?" I took a deep breath as I continued.

"So, at the end of the quest why did you look so sad despite looking happy at the same time?" Jose widens his eyes a little bit. He looks down for a bit, almost like he's gonna say something embarrassing.

"Promise you won't laugh okay?" I nod.

"It's well." Jose began "Agatha's situation reminded me of my childhood." I raise an eyebrow at this.

"So? That shouldn't make me laugh." I respond. Jose rolls his eyes.

"I didn't finish, you see, when I was 7 or 8, I got food poisoning at my father's home country of Colombia and I was bedridden for days and through all of it all. One of my cousins was there to keep me company, and after I recovered, I saw her as an older sister."

I didn't laugh at this, the complete opposite actually I actually found it sweet that his cousin was there with him during the time he was sick.

"Jose." I began "that's actually really sweet." He chuckles in an embarrassing way.

"Thanks, it's because of her I want to help other people and make sure they are alright."

"How old was your cousin? If you don't mind me asking."

"She was 10 at the time, she's likely almost 20 years old." I wondered if I were to survive this game, how would his cousin perceive me. It's as if Jose read my mind as he says.

"I feel like she will be extremely overprotective of me the moment she sees you, as she doesn't want anything to happen to her little cousin, but I feel like she sees me as a younger brother." I giggle slightly as I feel I might know why, it's probably because of his height, but then again I'm smaller than him as I'm 5ft 2.

We continued to chat about more trivial things like how the mobs look and what the floors beyond floor 8 will be.

Tolbana amphitheater, 12:30PM

Diaval's POV

With everyone gathered I began to explain the plan to everyone.

"Alright now that we have our squads in place, I'll tell you the game plan, squads A, B, C, and D will focus on the boss itself, squads E and F will focus on fighting the sentinels. If one squad is close to dying, both E and F will switch out for them." After discussing other things like drops and XP we all head out to the floor boss. I that those two never reveal themselves as beta testers.

Floor one dungeon, boss room.

Koharu's POV

Diaval slams his sword down to the ground as he says.

"I have one thing to tell you all, let's win!" Everyone raises their weapons as the door opens. The room is dark, everyone slowly enters as we all see a pair of glowing red eyes, the large figure that is easily 3 meters tall picks up its axe and buckler, it roars and the room lights up with different warm colors. We all charge towards it, me, Jose, Kirito, and Asuna handle the sentinels, with some occasions of switching out for another group.

5 minutes into the fight

"Jose! Switch!" I leap back as Jose's sword glows green and he launches himself towards the mace-wielding enemy and slashes it in a downward motion.

Another sentinel is heading towards me, I get myself into an offensive position, my dagger glows blue as the skill rushes me to the mob at intense speeds.

Jose's POV

To say that the battle is going alright is an understatement, the main squads are doing decent damage to the boss and we are keeping sentinels off of them. If this continues according to plan the battle might end in 2 more minutes.

Right as I thought of that, I heard Diaval's voice.

"I've got this!" I turn in the direction of his voice and see that the boss is in the red zone. It throws away its axe and buckler. Diaval runs towards it, his sword glowing yellow just as Illfang pulls out his secondary weapon Kirito yells.

"Don't! Get out of there it's not talwar it's an odachi!" Illfang jumps around and slashes at the blue-haired player.

A chill ran through my spine as Illfang prepares to attack Diaval again, I can't just stand there and do nothing, but my legs were glued to the ground I know I can't make it, but I have to do something, then my body moves on its own and goes at speeds well above the system limits, I feel both of my eyes burn intensely as I block the attack that could've easily broken my weapon but somehow it didn't. I stay there for two seconds and look at Diaval.

Diaval's POV

I look at Jose and notice that his eyes have a slight shade of yellow within them.

"Get him out of here now!" Commanded the boy in green. I get pulled out by members of squad A and B.

Jose's POV

I was able to get out of that lock in no time as the boss's attention is now on Agil and his group, I hear a pair of footsteps run towards me as Koharu hugs me out of nowhere.

"I'm sorry!" is all she could say, "w-when you lept out to save Diaval, I froze, I thought I was gonna lose you!" she buries her head onto my shoulders as I hug her back.

"it's fine Koharu, I was scared as well, I wasn't really in the clearest of mindsets." I respond with a sly chuckle.

we then hear a noise.

"Congratulations!"

Kirito landed the final blow to the boss and as a result, got the bonus item for it, everyone celebrates, but it doesn't last long as Kibaou exclaims.

"Why didn't you tell us?!" everyone turns to the orange-haired player "you heard me, if you had told us, both Jose and Diaval would not have nearly died." Diaval tries to defend him but fails as another player accuses Kirito.

"I know why, it's because he's a beta tester!" then almost everyone turns on Kirito as Kirito laughs at this.

"beta tester? don't compare me to those noobs."

"What did you say?" Kibaou angrily says.

"you heard me, most of those beta testers were nothing but rookies, they were so bad they didn't know how to use a sword, but me I'm not like that." he puts one hand on his hip "I went to floors way higher than floor 8, I knew the attack the boss was gonna use because I fought against monsters with those kinds of skills." he then has a sinister grin.

"That means I know more than you can imagine, more than any of those pathetic info brokers, and more than that stupid knight." Kibaou growls a bit.

"if that's the case your worse than a beta tester you're a goddamm cheater."

"Yeah, he's a beta tester and a cheater! he's BEATER!" Kirito once again chuckles in a sinister fashion.

"A Beater eh? heh, I like it." he begins to scroll through his inventory "okay you can call me a Beater, but DON'T compare me to those lame beta testers anymore." then a large black coat envelopes his body as he walks away.

"I'm going to activate the floor 2 teleport gate if you want to follow me, expect to die from the first monster you see."

"why would Kirito lie like that?" Koharu muttered. I give an answer in a deadpan voice.

"in order to keep the heat off the other testers, he's willing to become a scapegoat." even though it wasn't right, it likely was the only way to stop the mob from going after and accusing other players of being beta testers.

"well, either way, the next floor awaits us and we'll get stronger." we stare at each other and I smile.

"Yeah, if we're together we'll get stronger for sure, and we'll escape this death game."

ooooh boy was this chapter a pain to write but also fun at the same time, just gonna say this, I kinda rushed/half-assed the ending of this chapter so I might come back at later date to update on another note I'm gonna go back to both the prologue and the first chapter to add/change some things to make it more polished and less of a clobbered mess, so yeah, I think I'll do quality of quantity and write chapters of this length, but even then it likely won't be all that good, so yeah see you in the next chapter, let's see the name of the AOT related Fic should be called Soldiers Dairy, yeah that'll fit especially with me taking elements from AOT 2 and MC having a journal in the game, now for Iron Chain, the Iron-Blooded legion or the Mace legion? both fit great with Mikazu- oh crap I'm still writing!