Long drives or hikes were always one of my least favorite things. Yet we had pressed on through forest and various hunting grounds and overgrown trails where I was swatted with branches as I brought up the rear. Each encounter was fun to some extent but we'd fought all the monsters before and it was kind of tedious, but being addicted to MMORPGs and forced to grind for days for a single item allowed you to gain an immunity to the tedium.

It was night by the time we made it all the way to the giant tower at the center of the floor. Rather than a tower, it was more of a giant stone column supporting the rest of the entire castle than a tower to be totally honest and it was amongst many other columns on the giant elliptical bottom floor of Aincrad.

Anyway, the Labyrinth is out of sight now that we made it into the town of Vangor after 8PM. The journey took eight hours, though if we had just sprinted it might've taken an hour if even that. Kirito just sought to make the most of it, taking the long scenic route and grinding as much as possible for crafting mats, scraps, and col that we'd need in the future. Scraps being sellable junk loot; mats being loot that can be broken down into materials for crafters; and Col being this world's medium of exchange, which can also be referred to as currency.

I felt my mouth tug upwards into what was probably a smirk, but really this entire experience as a whole was kind of weird to me. Being reborn from another world into a different timeline of Earth and then creating a new character to once again 'be reborn' into another world that was quite different from reality but also just similar enough to not be totally jarring. Aincrad and the world of Sword Art Online was a nice place, ruined by the fact that it became a game where our very lives were put on the line, a different reality within a different reality so to speak. Somehow I felt like I didn't belong here, and my interference made me feel sad.

What if they both end up dying because of me?

"What's wrong?"

My gaze automatically drifted upward from the stone road that I had been staring at from my spot on this wooden bench. That voice was Sinon's, she was sitting next to me. Our eyes met and I thought of a lie to tell in an instant, it's not like I could tell her I was a reincarnated person. Though I'm sure that even if I did it wouldn't matter and she'd just consider me crazy or think that I was joking. Despite how serious but also kind hearted she was as a person. That aside, she looked concerned. So I decided to try and placate her worries, at least I thought she was worried anyway.

"Nothing important, was just thinking about what we'd need if we scout the Labyrinth. Didn't really see anybody in the village, but it's kind of late and sleep schedules in this world are built different. Everyone seems to go down when the sun goes down. No internet to use, no books to read and no games to play, no real amenities to speak of besides cooking and fishing, haha." My words slowed and gradually became a murmur followed by a bitter chuckle as I listed off what we didn't have to Sinon, she slowly started to look more and more mortified.

"No internet… no books and no games… besides the one that we are trapped in." She slowly took in a shaky breath and then huffed annoyedly. "All the more reason to beat the game and get out of here." She huffed annoyedly.

"That's the spirit, just don't try to rush through combat encounters. This game wasn't designed to be beaten in a day. If you ever need somebody to talk to or try to entertain you, I'm always here for you." I said, and her cheeks turned a slight pink.

Hmm. Cute.

I turned my head away to hide my own embarrassment and saw Kirito handing what looked like half a bun with cream to a girl in a brown hooded cloak, covering her eyes.

"Ah. Looks like that villain is making the moves on a girl." I said to Sinon, and nudged her.

Her brow twitched and the mirth was gone from her voice. "I see." A soft and disappointed murmur escaped her lips, then a sigh.

"If you sighed any louder I might mistake you for somebody who actually likes my brother." I said with a nasal huff.

Her cheeks went bright red and she shook her head and waved her hands in a fluster.

N-no…

My initial reaction was anger, followed by depression. Yet I couldn't let that show, it was selfish of me to put my own happiness before hers and I shouldn't even exist so it was only natural for her to like my brother. "I'm rooting for you." I said with a practiced smile. Naturally I didn't mean it, but I wanted to. Yet as an immature guy turned girl I was extremely jealous and envious of my twin brother.

"I mean, sure I like your brother, but it's not like that kind of like. I was just thinking about something else. How nobody else ever extended a hand like that to me and it reminded me of… school." She said, twirling a one of the chin-length fringes of hair at the sides of her face.

"I see." I said, and pressed a hand flat against my modest chest and pretended to be offended, "So what you're saying is that-"

"Don't even start with that guilt tripping stuff. It won't work on me." She rolled her eyes and looked away with a scoff.

I could only grin, "It comes naturally, sorry." She knew I was going to bring up how I had extended an Iron Hand of Undying Support and Friendship to her.

"I know, but that's part of what makes you Riyu, so don't apologize. We're closer than that."

Critical hit. Ah damn… my eyes are starting to rain. Stop! Just because somebody doesn't hate your personality…

"Don't cry Riyu."

"I'm not!" I quickly got up and turned my back towards her and wiped my eyes. I liked her so much her words held a deeper meaning to me, but I hated wearing my heart on my sleeve or showing deeper emotion.

"Guess we should head to bed." She murmured sleepily, and yawned.

I fought hard against the social interaction that was a yawn but succumbed to it in the end. We headed to bed. Completely forgetting about my brother's attempt to be nice to some random girl in a cloak whom I knew was Asuna anyway.

Sinon fell asleep first, so when she did I got out of bed and left a pre-written note on the table. Yet, I had things to do and couldn't just yet. Still she'd talked and talked and I thought she'd never fall asleep. So when she finally did, I snuck out of the room and past my brother's room.

.

.

"Well. Time to learn the way..." I deepened my voice like did in my past life to sound more badass, but naturally failed because my voice was higher pitched and simply sounded more sensual than…

"Ara… ara… okii… ne?"

"What are you doing?"

That voice! NOOOOO!

I turned around to face Kirito and buried my face in my hands. "Not like this."

He was wearing a wry teasing smile. He was like a little kid again, those gleaming eyes looked like he just found a Mythic tier item drop from a raid in an mmorpg.

"Aaa…" I decided to ignore the fact that he just heard me and folded my arms behind my back, and refused to make eye contact. There were very few instances in which I have actually wanted to perish. This was one of those times.

"Don't worry. I won't tell Sinon."

"Just forget you ever saw anything." I spun on my heel and started walking towards the labyrinth. "I left a note on the table but I'm going to head into the labyrinth to do some exploration."

"Hm. Mind if I ask why you decided to go alone at night… without any sleep?" My brother asked with a raised eyebrow. He looked frustrated with my decision to go without them, immediately.

"Efficiency… Progress?" It sounded more like a question than an answer.

Kirito sighed, "Have you even slept since you started playing this game?"

Truthfully no, not after the first day, the reality of the world I was now inhabiting has rendered me an insomniac completely incapable of falling asleep, so while my party slept, I just explored and wandered around at night, spending time alone to master the combat systems and memorize the move sets of all the monsters in the floor. It was a slow grind and mastery of parries was a slog. But it had been two weeks and I was getting better.

"I'll be fine, just head back to sleep." I said to Kirito before turning and heading towards the labyrinth. It was time for action.

"Hmm…" He hummed and left it at that. I never lied to him, but he was evidently worried.

.

.

Scouting out the labyrinth turned out to be a breeze. Mapping it out was slightly harder. Still, I managed with my cartography skill. Which basically automatically filled out a digital representation of a map inside the menu wherever I walked with gradually increasing detail, including various landmarks depending on skill level.

More like caves than a labyrinth, I came upon a group of Level 6 Ruin Kobold Troopers. Bulky and muscular looking humanoids with large rabbit-like ears, a pointed snout, thin short fur and each was armed with a longsword.

As for their armor, they wore leather greaves, a chest harness of leather and some boots but nothing else. Their muscles were pretty lean and it was obvious great care went into designing their models, but I wasn't exactly into boy muscles, just muscular girls and abs or… otokonoko… but that was a story for another time.

I came upon a group of three Ruin Kobold Troopers. They were on a set patrol path and I had intended to follow them for awhile to map out their patrol path. That didn't last long.

They were technically stronger than most mobs on this floor but they were still underleveled compared to me.

The closest one aggroed on me, their bestial roar signalling the entire group. Low growls filled the dark corridor and the first charged a sword skill, marked with red light.

Parry. Counter. Eliminate.

I followed through on my set objective, chamber blocking the sword skill with another perfectly timed sword skill from the opposite direction. We both recoiled from the force, its posture broke and Kobold A staggered.

Kobold B came in for a follow up attack from the left side. Kobold C simply observed for now, circling as it likely computationally decided which tactic to use.

I lowered myself into a stance for vertical and chained the skill with an upward slice, then brought myself to a horizontal. The three attacks happened over the course of two seconds. In that time Kobold A recovered. Kobold B died in a glittery shower of pixelated light shards that resembled glass. Kobold C charged an attack that looked dangerous, presumed lunge attack. My lock out from the system delay period ended. At the same time C's attack was fully charged. Jumped aside as soon as I could.

Presumptuous movement was correct luckily, narrowly dodged the attack that was a lunging impalation type of move. Kobold C likely had a cooldown period for a charged attack.

I used a Horizontal from right to left on A, then turned to narrowly avoid a slash from C.

Juggling combat targets was a skill I'd picked up from gaming competitively and difficult third person combat games like one about a shattered ring.

Immaculate performance.

Was what came to mind as another set of sword skills were evaded with slight ducks and simple sidesteps, countered by quick horizontals that were the most likely to hit. It was still a difficult fight. The change from over the shoulder to first person combat was jarring, though it provided a wider field of vision than VR headsets from my last reality, but that was because it was basically real vision. Besides VR, I'd played zoomed out in third person for most MMORPGs in my past world and this one.

Nevertheless After the quick destruction of Kobold Trooper B, these two were somewhat easy pickings and followed their comrade a several seconds later.

Ouch, fuck.

Thoughts were interrupted by C who landed a sword skill. Countered him with a Vertical, and he died.

Kobold A was already dead at this point, a simple backstep to evade the tip of his blade followed by a simple lean in and horizontal sealed the deal on his singular HP Health Bar. Nothing pisses me off more than an enemy who should've died but survives with single digit health points.

I pretended to flick the blood from my Longsword's blade then sheathed it.

In reflection there wasn't enough data to assess their combat patterns and movesets and know where I could easily counter yet. Their movements were dynamic but they only used single hit sword skills so far with no combos which were easy enough to get the timings down for. But there were different timings for their attacks, one held their skill for longer and the other one was impatient and attacked as soon as it could.

"Hmm… they're all… different?"

Even so I still ended up taking uncomfortable amounts of damage. For the most part I took it slow and used a health potion also known as a health pot to heal most of the damage I'd been taking.

As I delved deeper into the labyrinth the groups of mobs became ever more common and I put my theoretical combat techniques into practice and eliminated a few techniques that didn't work and narrowed down what would work without too much damage. During this process I had completely eliminated the damage taken per fight from about 60 percent to 15 percent and still decreasing. I wish I was some sort of god that could easily manage to deflect hits because of reaction time and hand eye coordination but it took awhile to finally memorize their patterns. Though they were getting more difficult to fight as well. It ultimately came down to who made less mistakes.

No idea how long had passed since I entered the labyrinth but I did know that it had been hours at the very least. Without my party members around on top of the total lack of capacity for sleep in this world, I was at a loss. So I opened my user interface and saw it was around 06:00.

Oh no…

I thought, then turned a corner and came upon a large open door that lead into a collosal empty room with no enemies. "This is the boss room." I murmured and then proceeded to begin backtracking towards the entrance that I had come from.

First however, I opened my item pouch, —which was basically this world's version of hotkeys— and withdrew another potion, popped the lid open and then used it with a quick chug. The potion tasted bitter. Like a carbonated beverage without any sugar or flavor.

I hope Sinon doesn't get mad at me…