A/N: Glorious. Glorious updates. Alas tis but a tiny short chapter. Was distracted with work. Next update will b R.

With the end of our first day, we came to find ourselves in dire need of sleep. We didn't bother returning to the other end of the floor's Start town. We just looked for a larger village since Horunka didn't have an inn. Following a path through a forest zone named Fox Forest we came to the Fariah Inn, tucked away and relatively secret, with the only evidence it was here being the trail that lead to it. It was the sign of immediately close civilization.

"Let's get inside. I'm starving." I finally stated.

"I didn't want to say anything, but I am too actually." Sinon stated.

"Interesting, I wonder how hunger actually works, I'd think that if our real world bodies are being fed and cared for, our hunger would be sated, this must be a game-side thing." Kirito thought aloud, he tended to do this a lot more whenever I was around, but if I recall correctly he didn't say what he was thinking in the anime or light novel that much.

There was definitely some kind of butterfly effect on both Shino and Kazuto. It's obvious that I was the cause, being born as his twin sister allowed him to become a more outgoing person, even after he chose the path of the gamerside. I could still relate to the things he talked about because I was a well-cultured gamer in my past life and had those memories to go off of.

Whereas Shino had no friend to rely on for years or that took the time to fully understand her plight, just a person who suggested she play Gun Gale Online and take advantage of her kindness. I forget his name. Well it's really not important anymore.

In any case, we stepped inside the large and rustic looking two story wooden building in the middle of the Fox Forest. With the threat of danger no longer looming upon us I looked upon my user interface and took in the most important details.

KixRiyu

Level 8

HP 725/725

Skills 3

One-Handed Sword 36/1500

Weapon Guard 2/1500

Heavy Armor 1/1500

Col

9,343

I closed the interface and noticed Sinon and Kirito had done the same. I shrugged as I found a table and when they were done basking in the glory of their new stats I waved them over.

"Hello, can I take your order?" Asked an NPC villager girl named Julie, she wore the standard villager attire, mostly red with bright red hair. She seemed like a rudimentary AI, but still better than most games I played in my past life. I decided to put it to the test.

"Hi, my name is Ki x Riyu. I'd like to order, but what do you have?" I asked her.

The NPC just smiled, "I'm Julie, nice to meet you." She said and handed me a menu without having to speak another line redundantly and then hand it to me. I might fall in love- no! No I must remain faithful to the one worthiest of my affections and deepest loyalties!

SINOOOOOOOOO-

I gazed down at the menu with a slight smile.

Hmmm

"I'll have the steak with gravy and potatoes, with the Sweet Ardent Mead for 3000 col, thanks." I stated bluntly and removed the money for now.

"Right away!" The waitress ran to the back, either to acquire food or to provide immersion for the RPers. I wasn't sure. But I appreciated the effort on the part of the game devs.

With that aside I made eye contact with Sinon who sat next to me and then Kirito who took a seat across from me. "So, for the first boss of the first floor, and beyond, we'd form platoons of people for it. A platoon is a collection of parties that combine under a single leader to defeat a boss in a raid. The platoon shares loot in a dungeon and can only be formed on the inside of a dungeon. Once you exit the dungeon you will leave the platoon with your party or it disbands."

Understandable mechanics. "How many can fit into a party?"

Kirito laughed and nervously rubbed the back of his head. "No idea, I was never in a party of more than two before today. I defeated the first boss by myself." He said almost apologetically.

"What level were you?" I asked, curious.

"Ten… ten is the highest you can get on the first floor before the experience requirement rises too fast, and that's when the game starts to really open up, you can take profession skills at that point." He said, leaning forward and pressing his palms against the table. "But I wouldn't recommend trying to 1v1 a floor boss, the game has changed and we don't know what else the devs changed before releasing the final product to make the game more difficult or challenging." He said softly, he was probably to nervous to just decide to put his life on the line solo to fight the boss. Unneeded risk.

I nodded slowly, taking in what he was saying.

"So… it's real then. Still hard to believe it, but it really is real. I think my best bet is to put my faith in both of you… so I'll follow you until we win or…" Sinon started talking, then trailed off, so I thought this was a good point to interrupt.

"Until death do us part." I murmured, successfully resisting the urge to smirk.

She kicked my leg under the table, her face turned slightly pink. Then faded as she frowned. "I'm trying to be serious, Riyu."

"Sorry." I cleared my throat.

"Well, first we need to find people to play with to clear the first floor and since it's not like any of us will be logging out any time soon, we can probably just post up a notice board or something and have a meeting point." Kirito explained.

"It won't be that easy, we really need a guild, how do we make one?" I said, thinking back to being a guildmaster of about 150 hardcore players that were consistently on almost all the time for about a year anyway. Iron Blood.

"Floor 3 is where the quest to unlock the Guild Feature is." Kirito said, almost exasperatedly.

"Which means we could probably get a full party together and beat the first two bosses like that." I said nonchalantly.

Sinon was leaning in, listening with the intent to eagerly make sense of what we were saying.

"In theory." Kirito said with a shrug and slumped back into his seat.

The waitress came along and deposited my food on the table in front of me and I shrugged as well. "For now let's focus on getting to level ten and then worry about the boss later."

The scent of beef filled my nose, the look of hot steak, gravy and mashed potatoes aroused my appetite and with the appetizer of Sinon's kick to my leg, I dug in. Eating refined, of course. I couldn't look like a voracious starving wolf in front of Sinon. Once I was done, the other two ordered while I went ahead to give myself more attribute points in vitality.

For the next few weeks, we went on a grind for levels, gear, materials and col. He was right about the experience requirement, and my god… I have never in my life went on such a grind, and it turns out once you hit a certain growth on the first floor, you can no longer grow.