Immediately after the events of Chapter 2

Me and Koharu looked at the raid party, we knew at that moment, they all hated Kirito(aside from Asuna Agil and members of team B), who could blame them though? He just revealed himself as a former beta tester, a "Beater" more specifically and proclaimed himself to be much better than the other testers, he wasn't wrong by ANY stretch of the imagination, as I to was a part of the beta, and I can say that at the very least 65-70% of beta testers that I met, (and my encounter with Koharu at the end of beta counted to.) were….to put it bluntly, bad at playing the game. I understand why he was doing this. My thoughts, however, were cut off by Diaval's voice.

"I'm….not going to lead anymore, I'm sorry everyone." Almost everyone in the raid party looked at the blue haired knight who, yesterday afternoon, told me he wanted to lead everyone to all 100 floors, so why didn't he want to lead? Something seems fishy, but there are pressing matters at the moment.

"W-what do you mean?!" Kibaou asked, confused as to why Diaval is backing down, Diaval looks at Kibaou and then looks down at the dark grey floor.

"I'm sorry, but during that battle….I slipped up and I should've been the one to command you all to safety, but I didn't I-" he gets interrupted by Kibaou.

" So what?! Things fell apart because of that good for nothing beater not telling us shit! That isn't on you, that's on him!" Diaval raises his voice.

"Kibaou." The cactus haired player immediately stops and lets Diaval continue. "I know where you're coming from, I do, but we would've suffered a lot more than me nearly dying if he wasn't here."

"But that's because-" Kibaou gets interrupted once more.

"I should've kept a level head and saw the different weapon type, but I didn't and as a result, I almost got myself and Jose killed." He takes a deep breath, is he going to reveal himself as a beta tester? "But I was too focused on getting the final attack bonus, so I rushed without telling anyone." Kibaou looks distraught, as if everything that He believed was false, again something seems fishy.

"But, you were doing that for everyone else, not for yourself…..right? You're nothing like that beater." Kibaou sounded desperate, as if the answer Diaval was gonna give will change everything for him, but what's off is he said you're nothing like that beater, does Kibaou know Diaval was a beta tester? Then if that's the case, then why didn't Kibaou call him out? From what yesterday has told me anything, it was that it looked like Kibaou hated beta testers and wanted them to pay, so what made Diaval different? Whatever the case, I'm going to find out soon, all the while, on the other hand, Diaval doesn't look at Kibaou.

"I" Diaval stops for a moment and sighs "It doesn't matter, I rushed in to satisfy my urges and as a result it nearly got people killed." Kibaou's face changed from desperation to more of a defeated look.

"Diaval, you said that you would lead us right?" Diaval looked at Kibaou then at another player with brown hair and blue eyes. He was a part of Diaval's squad, if I remember correctly their name was Lind.

"Lind, Kibaou, from now on I want the two of you to lead everyone to all 100 floors, and on the topic of Kirito, no matter what he is or your opinions on him, he's still going to be a valuable ally and one you must have."

"So what are you gonna do, Diaval?" I asked, because if he's going to leave, what's he gonna do while he's gone?

"I owe a lot to you and Kirito, but I assure you, that when I do come back, I'll make it up to you guys." I smile a bit as I say for no reason.

"Take your time." Kibaou chimes in with a bit of resolve in his voice.

"I'll play leader for the time being, at least until you come back alright?" He sounded sincere,this is the first time seeing Kibaou like that. Dival nods as he gets up.

"Thank you, I leave everyone to you." Diaval says as he leaves the boss room.

"What do you think will happen to him afterwards?" Koharu muttered, I shrugged.

"I don't know, but for now we have to focus on clearing the other floors and maybe Diaval might come back." The axe wielder, Agil comes in.

"All we can do is wait." Agil turns to the general direction of his group. "I'll be going, hey, don't let this get to the both y'all, Kirito and Diaval made their choices, all we can do is fight and continue through these floors." I slowly nod as he waves us off, I look at Koharu and she looked….conflicted, I look around the boss area and almost everyone has left to either the second floor or back to Tolbana.

"You okay?" I asked Koharu, she turned her body towards me, her head hung low, "hey, is everything alright, you can talk to me." I say in a gentle way. I can barely hear her voice.

"I'm sorry, Jose."

"About what?" I ask, why was she apologizing? Was it because she froze? If it's because of that then she shouldn't apologize! It's normal for people to freeze during terrifying moments.

"All I could do is watch as you save Diaval." She says, her face still downcasted, her voice begins to break "i-if you got hurt…o-or worse yet k-killed, it would've been my fault." All I could do was just hug her, and at the same time, I remember what my cousin Jemia (someone who I viewed as an older sister) told me before.

"If someone you care about is crying or feeling down, hug them! That'll tell them that you're there for them, and they'll feel better!" It was back when I was super young and her English was….terrible, hell it was before I got food poisoning. At the time I didn't know why she said that, but now I do, because here and now, my partner, Koharu, a girl who is around the same age as me, is crying saying if I had died it would've been her fault.

"It's okay, Koharu, this was everyone's first boss fight, no one was ready." I say while stroking the back of her head "and like I said before, I jumped in without thinking so I'm partially at fault here." Though that was a complete lie. The only reason I lied is how am I gonna explain that I was stuck in place one moment, then the other moment I went at speeds above the system limit? That's not even counting the burning feeling within my eyes and how I was able to somehow stop Illfang's odachi without breaking my Anneal Blade 5, then again, I put two of those upgrades towards durability and the other three to damage, but even THEN, that block should've at the very least cracked the blade.

"No, but, what if it happens again? I'm worried that my helplessness will be the cause of your death." Koharu mutters with sadness and fear clear throughout her voice still. I held her at arm's length and looked her in the eyes.

"Look at me Koharu." Her eyes slowly move to face mine, tears still dropping from her face, "I'm not going to die, that I promise, and I'll make sure I'll protect you!" Koharu narrows her eyes as she says.

"I need to be braver. Enough to stand by and protect you, like Kirito and Asuna." my gaze softens a bit.

"Let's do what we can to get stronger, alright?" Koharu's expression changes ever so slightly as she smiles softly.

"Yeah." I scratch the back of my head rather awkwardly.

"Hey, since the floor is unlocked, wanna explore it?" Koharu nods slowly, as I release my grip from her shoulders and begin to walk, Koharu's hand interlocks with mine, I feel my heartbeat rise ever so slightly as I turn to face her.

"C-can I hold your hand? At least until we get there?" Koharu asks rather meekly, I feel a bit of heat raise on my face, but I accepted it regardless, though this reminds me so much of the second day of all of us being trapped, after Kaizen died, maybe she just wants to stay close to me, in all honesty I didn't mind it, as we being to approach the door that will lead to the next floor, I instinctually stopped right in front of it.

"Ready?" I ask Koharu, she nods.

"Yeah."

Koharu's POV

As we both walked up the stairs, my eyes looked at Jose. I doubt I'll ever be as strong as Kirito, but I'll make sure that I'll be strong enough to protect Jose. It's the least I could do to thank him for helping me since the beginning, even though he shouldn't have.

About two minutes passed and we were met with a very nice sight, savanna grasslands with large, flattop rock formations. I released my grip from Jose's hand and looked at the place in awe, I felt like I was a kid about to go on an adventure of epic proportions.

"Now the adventure really begins." Jose says in a dramatic tone? I turn around and tilt my head in amusement, Jose blushes slightly out of embarrassment and scratches the back of his head as he apologizes "sorry I tried being funny I guess, didn't work it seems." I giggle as I just realize something, he's kinda cute.

"It's fine." I assured "it made the mood a little lighter." He smiles a bit. We both look at each other for a brief second, he looks at-

"Fancy seeing you two on this floor!" I instantly jump back at the scrappy voice.

"Ahhhhhh!!" Then I realized it was Argo. "oh, it's you Argo." The girl with painted red whiskers looks at both me and Jose, I raise an eyebrow. "What is it?" The rat had a smug look.

"Am I interrupting something between you two love birds?" I feel my face ignite as Jose whisper yells.

"Shhh! people are reading this fic, you shouldn't be saying that kinda shit, I don't want them shipping us this early" huh? What did he mean by people are reading? Argo, shocked a bit, responds.

"Oh shit, well either way news of the boss being beaten has reached players from the Town Of Beginnings." Jose, looks to not be surprised, but still looks happy about the news. It shows that SAO can be beaten.

"That's great!" Jose exclaims. He then tilts his head a little bit, "so why are you here specifically?" Argo, on the hand, burst out in laughter.

"Are dumb Jose?." She inquired, Jose well, looked confused if anything. As if he forgot that she was an info broker, I flicked him on the back of the head.

"What the hell was that for?" He complained. I just looked at him, completely dumbfounded by his reaction, he has to be joking!

"She's an info broker…….remember." His eyes widen in realization and embarrassment as his face turns beat red and almost instantly, the boy who was comforting me not too long ago is now acting like a cute idiot as he immediately apologizes.

"I-I-I I am sooooo sorry!" He stuttered. "I uhhh well…erm, you know, I uhhh." He tries to figure out an answer (more like an excuse.) as to why he forgot, but unfortunately it fails. "Look ok I forgot." The rat with painted red whiskers puts one hand on her hip as she chuckles.

"This can definitely be used." Jose nervously smiles as he asks what she meant.

"What do you mean by that?" Argo tries her best not to laugh as she explains herself.

"You see, With me being an info broker, any kind of info, no matter how small, can be paid, so with your short memory, that can be used." Jose lets out an annoyed sigh.

"Fuck." He silently muttered. Argo, on the other hand, shrugs.

"Well either way, I'm going to explore this floor and see what's changed." I perked up and asked.

"Want us to help?" Argo shakes her head.

"Nah I'll be good, take care, you two." Says as she walks ahead of us.

"You know, Argo seems kinda free spirited don't you think?." Jose scoffs at this.

"Maybe a little too free spirited." I hold in my laughter as I can see why he's a little pissed.

"Is it because your short memory can be used?" I commented, Jose's face became even more red from embarrassment.

"No! It's definitely NOT because of that!" He yells, though I can see right through his lie. I gently laugh as once again, he's acting like a complete idiot and it's cute. After I was finished laughing I pointed in front of us where there was a bit of an overpass like shape.

"Why don't we try and gather some intel over there, not only to help ourselves and others, but to potentially relieve some of the rage you have for being called out." Jose's eye twitches a bit, unsure whether to accept it or not, he eventually sighs and silently mutters.

"Fine" I clap both of my hands together.

"Alright let's do this!" I say as we both head towards the rock formation.

Jose's POV

I wouldn't lie that Koharu had me there, but with everything swirling around me, like Kirito proclaiming to be the "evil Beater.", Diaval leaving and the possibility of things being changed from the beta! Obviously the smaller things would slip from my mind, but then again I feel like that would be an excuse in both Koharu and Argo's eyes. In the middle of these thoughts however I heard something running straight towards me! I unsheath my Anneal Blade and jump to the side.

"Sorry!" Koharu apologized "I aggroed it and it came for you!" I rolled my eyes in annoyance as I turned around and saw it's a Trembling Bull, the large horned cow shakes its head as it huffs. I change my stance sides ways, lifting my sword close to my chest as it glows a bright light blue and In an instant my body goes at very fast speeds, my body stopped about 2 meters from where I activated my sword skill. All I could hear was the sound of something shattering. I take a small deep breath as I hear Koharu clapping.

"That was pretty awesome." I let out a sly chuckle.

"Really?" I began "I didn't think it was all that impressive, then again." I take a moment to compose myself and not laugh "it is more impressive than you attempting to use a sword skill on the first day aaaand landing on your butt." Koharu pouts a bit and I have to admit she looked adorable.

"That was the first day and you have to admit I got better with sword skills…...slightly." I walk up to her and pat her on the head a few times.

"You definitely have, who knows, at the rate you're going, I wouldn't be surprised if you surpassed me in terms of skill." I wasn't joking, from the way she fought during the Elixir Of The Forest and substiquent battles afterwards, she's getting way better than I expected. I would argue she would make it to the top 5 or even top 3 at this rate. Koharu looks around curiously.

"There's so many cows," is all she said. I snorted in amusement, she clearly didn't go past floor one, but I began to explain the floor.

"Okay." I began "this is basically the theme of this floor, Bulls everywhere. Pretty much what I'm saying is, welcome to Moo Moo Heaven." Koharu rubs her chin and looks around the surrounding area more.

"And the theme is also savanna." I roll my in response to that, duh the other theme is savannas. "And I assume the boss is going to be a cow?" I shrugged.

"It's supposed to be a cow like beast wielding a hammer, but considering how things might've changed from the beta, I'm not too sure." From Illfang's different move set, I'm more than certain that more changes will come in. I look ahead of myself and begin walking. Koharu follows suit, our new objective is to head to Urbus, it's about an hour walk, nothing too long in all honesty.

Koharu looked in awe at the floor while I had a neutral face. It was comforting knowing that Koharu is happy, but the rest of the walk was filled with silence….very awkward silence, which I'm personally not against . Sometimes I prefer silence when I'm alone or grouped up with people I'm not too well acquainted with, but when it comes to friends, well, I prefer if we were to talk for a bit. But her overjoyed looks stopped me from striking up a conversation.

Floor 2 Town, Urbus

The town known as Urbus is in a crater of the nearby mountainous region. As me and Koharu venture further into the town we begin to notice players are around, looks like Kirito activated manually, but even if he didn't, the teleport gate would activate on its own after two hours of the previous floor being clear. I open my player menu and scroll to "items". I smile a bit as I turn to face Koharu.

"Hey, uh, we should upgrade our equipment, the weapons and armor we have currently might be useful until the third floor, but you know JUST in case." Koharu nods in agreement. We started at the start of the town, but there were no NPC blacksmiths in the general vicinity. We headed further into the town itself and luckily enough, there was one, we both entered the shop and the NPC greeted us.

"Hello travelers, how should I help you?" I unsheath my Anneal Blade and ask.

"Can you upgrade this?" The NPC smiles gently as he takes my blade.

"What would you like to upgrade?" He asked, a window popped up with the set parameters.

Attack 4, Durability 3, Speed 1, weight 1, Critical Chance 1.

For me, attack was fine, with the damage I dealt with the Trembling Bull, with how I was able to block Illfang's attack, durability was good I guess, now for weight, while useful to damage player armor, I have no intentions on fighting other players (for obvious reasons) another reason of me not wanting to use it is due to the fact that the Anneal Blade alone is already a fairly heavy weapon on its own, I can still dodge things quickly, but not fast as a Small Sword. Funnily enough, that's why I'm only wearing a steel breastplate, because if I were to add more armor I wouldn't be as quick, meaning I would have a higher chance of getting hit and potentially dying.

Back in the beta I used to try out all kinds of weapons and armor, examples being really heavy armor with an axe or light armor with a dagger, that's just one of the many combinations I did. During the time of the beta I did these combinations to see what's best for me when the official release came, originally I wanted to do a tank build (I thought of this before I reunited with Koharu by pure coincidence.) as I can have pure defense and attack, but sacrifice mobility, however with the knowledge of SAO being a death game, well that idea is thrown out the window.

"Jose?"

Now for Critical Chance, it's about increasing the players chances to get a critical hit even if they didn't hit the weak point of the monster, I've personally never used it as it was something I've never been interested in upgrading (at least in the beta), again with SAO being a death game, I have to be more careful so I can definitely consider it.

"Hello? Earth to Jose."

Now finally Speed, in all honesty, just like with Critical Chance, I never used it as I didn't see much use for it. The enhancement, to my own knowledge, makes the swings of the sword faster, useful for getting more hits, but there's a possibility of it losing attack or even durability (for game balancing purposes). It's definitely a gamble to use it, and I only have my Anneal Blade. If I have my small sword (which I sold to get more Cor) I can experiment on it, but I don't.

"JOSE!" I feel my body get shaken violently as I get snapped out of my train of thought. I look at Koharu who has a very annoyed expression, normally I would find it somewhat cute, but here, well, I was a bit on edge to say the least.

"Y-yes?" I ask in a nervous manner, she sighs in an irritated way.

"Are you gonna upgrade it?" She asks, annoyance clear throughout her voice, I stand there, unsure what to say as the NPC of all people responds to this.

"Let him take his time miss, I am in no rush." It was odd seeing an NPC responding to that. It's another sign things have changed from the beta as this never happened before….or perhaps something beyond the system has intervened.

I shake my head as I look back at the window and tap on Critical Chance. I then give the necessary items to the NPC, he nods his head and begins working on it. Me and Koharu wait for the NPC to be done, but it's rather awkward. Regardless, I look around the shop to see what to talk about.

"Sooooo." I began "the place has a nice weapons display don't you think?" Koharu raises an eyebrow out of amusement.

"You don't know how to start conversations don't you?" She simply asked, I shrugged, she was half right. For the most part I know exactly what to say, but with such an awkward feeling surrounding me, well, I can't really think of anything.

I looked at Koharu in the eyes and I noticed how bright her green eyes really were. They were a neat contrast to my dark brown (almost black) eyes. I must've been looking at her for too long as her face is marked in a slight shade of pink.

"You're starring, Jose." Koharu says, I looked away almost instantly, I felt my head heat up for some reason as my eyes darted towards the door to where the blacksmith NPC was upgrading my sword. He's still upgrading? I slowly moved my eyes towards the small black brooch Koharu had.

"Mind telling me why you bought that?" I asked, it was honestly a really late question to ask as she had it since the first day, so why I didn't ask any earlier is beyond me.

Koharu looked at where her brooch was.

"It's something I wore in real life." She says, I can tell she was somewhat embarrassed by saying that.

"Really?" Is all I answered. It was interesting to say the least, but I'm not innocent either as I plan on getting a pair of glasses to match more with my real life look.

"Y-yeah." She stutters "I used to wear one back at piano recitals with my mom." My eyes widen in surprise, she plays piano? That's pretty cool and I voiced that out.

"You play piano? That's awesome!" I can see Koharu's face turn even more red.

"R-really?"

"Yeah." I nod in response to that. "You play a pretty complex instrument, at least it's complex to me." Koharu scratches the back of her head.

"Thanks." I smiled at her gently.

"No problem." I hear the door open as the NPC walks out with my now Anneal Blade 6, he sets the sword down on the table.

"All done!" I grab the handle of the sword as I nod at the NPC.

"Thank you." Koharu unsheathes her dagger and the NPC accepts. She swiftly taps on durability, I didn't say anything about it, as it's HER weapon of choice. The NPC accepts it and heads back to the room.

Once again it was the two of us again, and just like before it was just awkward silence. I want to say something, but it just feels way off for some reason. I wonder what's making Koharu so silent.

Koharu's POV

The odd feeling in the air is back, I want to say something, but after the honesty embarrassing talk we had about my brooch, it made things even more awkward (at least for me). I look at where Jose is standing and his head is looking at the floor. Then I noticed something about his hair, it's curly, at least the top is curly.

"Hey, Uhh, is your hair curly?" I ask rather passively. Jose shoots his head up in surprise, his eyes even wider than they were.

"Wait! They're still there?!" He exclaimed loudly, as if he hadn't had that in a long time. He takes a deep breath and smiles a bit, I'm not sure if it was directed at me or the curls, but that was soon answered as he laughed a bit.

"And here I thought the curls wouldn't show again." I tilted my head at this.

"Again?" I see Jose give an awkward smile as he explains himself.

"You see, I'm supposed to have curly hair, but my mom usually cuts it frequently and straightens it out, so the curls don't show that much, if at all." It was somewhat shocking to hear that. Before I can ask more, the NPC returns with my dagger.

"Good as new miss." I grabbed my dagger and thanked him. As we both walk out the blacksmith shop I hear a familiar, annoying male voice.

"You two there!" We both turn to the direction of the voice and sure enough it's Kibaou. The cactus haired man approaches us, I was kinda expecting to be yelled at by him for no reason for the sake of being a jerk.

"What is it?" Jose asked calmly, though I can tell he's not all that happy to see the orange haired man. Kibaou points at Jose's Anneal Blade.

"Your sword, you upgraded right?" Jose nods slowly, unsure what this is all about. Kibaou likely forgot I existed as he continues "I need your help."

Jose raises an eyebrow.

"Why?" Kibaou looks around a bit.

"Look, after Diaval left, he put me and a dick named Lind to lead the players right? You already knew this." Jose nods, once more confused by the situation as Kibaou continues. "Unfortunately, that little group kinda split apart."

"Meaning?" I asked and Kibaou jumped only to realize it was me.

"Oh right you're the girl Jose is always with." I simply look at Kibaou in an annoyed way, but he doesn't notice (or doesn't care) as he turns back to Jose. "Anyway, there's Aincrad Liberation Squad that I lead and there's Dragon Knights Brigade, the one that Lind leads." In response Jose tilts his head.

"Aincrad what?" Kibaou puts one arm on his hip.

"It's what my group will be called eventually." He states "but for now it's just a name being thrown around, there were others like The Army, Tekkadan, and so on and so forth." Right after the name Tekkadan is stated, Jose has a subtle semblance of a smile. Kibaou glances to his left. Almost seeming to be upset.

"Lind is an over ambitious dude, going as far as saying he's Diaval's successor." Jose snorts at what Kibaou said.

"So like you right?" The orange haired man looks visibly angry.

"Look! I've stuck to my own tactics! I'm beating this stupid game without the help ANY beta testers!" I can feel Jose's slight uneasiness about this, and asking us for help goes against his "tactics" regardless I cross my arms.

"And what do you need us for?" Kibaou looks at me intimidatingly, but in all honesty, it's not working at all.

"Look at the moment, my squad kinda needs better gear so we don't lose out to those damn knights and we have our hands full at the moment." He pauses for a moment and closes his eyes, Kibaou sighs "you two already know the area, so could you help me get the materials? I'll pay you well alright." Jose scratches the back of his head, he looks at me, then back at Kibaou.

"Fine we'll help you out, at least for the time being ok?" I looked at Jose questionably, but I have a feeling he knows what he's doing, as having good relations with the guilds might help us get out of sticky situations.

Kibaou extends his hand towards Jose.

"Happy to do business with you." Jose grabs Kibaou's hand tightly and shakes it "firm grip, I like it!" To that Jose chuckles as he lets go.

"Welp, I'll see what I can do to help you out, alright." Kibaou nods rather appreciatively.

"Thanks, but I want you to hurry as well. We don't need those knights to beat us alright, I need around 10 or so Bull Hoofs from the ." I can tell Jose wanted to roll his eyes, but he just nods as Kibaou walks away I assume to meet up with his guild, as he does, Jose slouches forward slightly as he lets out an annoyed sigh.

"Alright let's get that orange cactus the materials he needs." I place my hand on his shoulder and he smiles at me a bit, I felt my heart rate raise ever so slightly as he did that. I (internally) shake off that feeling as we turn to the general direction of the fields and walk towards them.

FUCKING Finally! Chapter 3 is out! After what? Two to three months of not updating, I finally got this done, took WAY too long to finish in all honesty, lol. But no seriously, I got delayed far too many times and writers block got me quite frequently, regardless this chapter was fun to write and yeah. A very unsatisfactory ending to this chapter, but regardless it's not the end of the floor as I still have a quite a bit of things to adapt and spin it to make sure both Jose and Koharu don't stick with Kirito and Asuna for TOO long, as I intend to keep them as acquaintances for a little while longer, at least until after floor 10 as I have something planned for that. What is it you ask? You'll have to be patient and probably wait a year or so, due to my inconsistent upload schedule.

Also did you catch that fourth wall break? Might do more heh heh

On to review replies!

tl34lt12: that is certainly a surprise to hear that most Integral Factor fics are in Wattpad, welp either way stap in reader, as this is gonna be a long ride (and probably a slow burn too).

??? POV

I looked at the pair that were currently walking towards the fields

Unit ID: 121707

Unit Name: Jose Perdi

And

Unit ID: 022308

Unit Name: Koharu Honda

They were an interesting to pair, and one I want keep observing to see how their lives are affected from the change made by our creator, rather concerning is how the effects had rippled to the past as well. It's possible that more GLITCHES will appear in this reality and in others as well, but it's likely that Cardinal will fix a majority of these unwanted things.