Chapter 4

I sat up in an unfamiliar bed, my heart pounding in my chest. Floorboards creaked, and I could hear snoring on the other side of the room, where I could make out the form of a sleeping body.

I sighed, rubbing my forehead as I stood, looking for my shoes. The floor was...clean? No socks, no shoes?

I frowned, sitting on the edge of the bed. The image of a semi bearing down on my burst into my head with sudden clarity, and I sighed, lifting my right hand to pull up my menus, flipping over to my inventory, selecting my shoes and the simple bronze breastplate,letting them materialize on my feet and getting used to the comfortable weight of the simple bronze armor, making my way out of the room that Kanto and I had rented. I pressed a gem on the wall next to a bowl, and water began flowing. I dunked my head under it, sighing as I pulled up, hair dripping, eyes bleary in the battered and worn bronze mirror. It was the first time I'd gotten a good look at myself. It was...strange. Almost perfect, but I seemed to have something that didn't quite feel right about my face. My nose was sharper, and my eyes seemed just a little bit too...something. Something wrong with the irises. I didn't know quite what in the darkness of the room.

I turned, pulling my hair into place with my fingers, mushing it into my usual style as best as I could. I was frustrated when it eventually just drifted back to how it had been before. I tried again and again- the water felt, strange, too silky, almost, but no matter what I did, my hair just seemed to reset itself to the strange style. I sighed before gripping the simple brass doorknob and exiting the room. No one was down in the main lobby except for the NPC running the bar, and I preferred it that way, setting a hand on the hilt of my short sword as I sat down on a simple wooden chair next to the fire, staring at the flames. Feeling the warmth.

A waitress came up to me.

"Would you like something to eat?"

I blinked. "Pardon?"

"We have simple food items here, at the base of the great castle, but we can offer you bread, some fresh cheese, a few other things if you would like."

I raised an eyebrow. "How much would it be?"

"A simple meal would be five Cor, drinks would be more."

I gritted my teeth. I was pretty hungry. I'd just gone to bed once we'd found an inn. I had made quite a bit the day before- I'd earned roughly 30 cor per beast that I'd slain, and even with the cost of the inn, I did have some to spare- quite a bit, comparatively speaking.

"Yes please. And a drink, not too expensive."

A window to pay appeared in front of me. I pushed the blueish circle to accept.

"That will be out in a moment!"

I nodded appreciatively, and the NPC woman turned away into a back room behind the bar. Probably the kitchen or the stores. She returned surprisingly quickly, bearing a simple wooden plate with a crude and slightly burnt loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese. I thanked her, pulling off bits of the roll and dipping them in the drink to soften the crust before eating it and testing the cheese.

Again: bland is an understatement- but it was some flavor, and I welcomed the small tang to the cheese that there was. It was over too soon, and I sighed, turning back to the flames. It was two A.M., by SAO time. I'd never slept well, but I'd kind of hoped that having a virtual body would change that. Usually I just couldn't get comfortable, and I'd hoped that having this different body, where my proportions were just off in subtle ways, might help. But my mind decided that sleep was not something it wanted I suppose, that night. I sighed again, standing and adjusting the sword on my hip. Cities were supposed to be safe zones, right? All of the beta test reports that I'd read had said so. Maybe I would explore. I stepped out of the door, and stared up at the sky, although I suppose it was really the floor above us, far off in the distance. It sparkles with an iridescence, as if thousands of gems were placed in that distant space. A small moon-light let off a mild white glow off above the city, and I was surprised by the chill that bit at the air.

"Que mundo…"

I missed my dog. It was a perfect moment, and it would have been nice to have him there. Or any of my brothers. Someone.

I glanced at the ground before taking a deep breath, and setting off down the simple cobblestone street. It was quiet, but even in this simple town, there were still lights on in some rooms, small and dim, as if a candle, but far steadier. I made my way to a market, finding a small shop that advertised weaponry. It was closed, and I sighed as I sat down in a ledge of stone, staring up at the sky.

Somewhere, under a real sky, my family was no doubt wondering what had happened to me. I doubted that the government would be so quick to inform them about my fate as I would have hoped. I blinked, opening my menu.

"There's got to be a way to fix my name on this thing…" I muttered, flipping through the different panels and windows. Finally, I found account settings.

Name Change? One time option.

I hit "Accept" and set my name to the one that I had chosen the day before. Jean Na'Has. New life, new name… I gripped the handle of my hilt comfortably. New rules. I stretched out on the ledge, crossing my arms underneath me on the brick wall, closing my eyes, and letting myself drift off to sleep.

Kanto descended the stairs long after sunrise, bleary eyed and looking about as confused as someone could be.

"So you're a morning person then?"

"Y Claro che, Up with the dawn, more that you can do, right?"

"I see that at least one glitch got fixed on your end, I can see your name nice and clearly!"

He seemed to be glancing at his health-bar, and I figured that it was due to the fact that we were in a party together that he could tell.

"Yeah, happened in the middle of the night."

He nodded, face grim. "I suppose we should go out and grind some more, eh? Try and catch up to the Beta Testers and the skilled."

"I suppose so, yeah, sounds about right."

He gritted his teeth, gripping his sword more tightly. "I guess there's nothing for it, onwards and upwards! The certain victory of this game isn't going to claim itself, no?"

I tried to decipher the strange word choice. It really sounded quite a bit like the bad translations of asian webnovels that I used to read when I was younger. Translator: Not foolproof.

"True, true, has anyone reached the second floor yet?"

Kanto looked at me, eyebrow raised. "No, of course not, they only recently found the dungeon in this tower that leads somewhere to the boss room. They've been trying to find it for days, still no sign of the main door. Supposedly, anyway."

Kanto pulled a small brown book out of a pocket in his tunic, flipping through it.

"Hm..According to the Player's Guide, there's a pretty easy quest that starts here in town- something about a farmer who's lost in the woods. Not too much fighting, just needs someone to begin to use the tracking skill."

I frowned. "If we're trying to get stronger, don't we want to follow quests that have more combat? They're worth more XP right?"

"Well...I mean...yeah…"

He paused, glancing around him. "Its just...well, over 500 people have already died. More are dying trying to explore the dungeon. I don't know if it would be worth it."

I hesitated.

"500, already?"

Kanto shuffled from foot to foot, looking uneasy.

"Ok, how about we take the middle ground- a quest with some combat, but isn't as life - threatening?"

Kanto grinned, slugging me in the shoulder. "Now that's the thing! Get some experience in, yeah? Let me check-" Kanto flipped back through the book, and I leaned against the brick wall of the alleyway as he paroused, watching a strange bird fly off overhead.

"Aha!" he proclaimed. "Here's one- clearing a farmer's field of some worms. A challenge, but according to this, the only person who died during this quest did so because he broke his weapon on a rock and fell right into the middle of the nest of worms at the beginning of the fight- says here he tried to do it alone too."

"Well," I declared. "Lead on, Kanto. I'll follow you to the farmhouse, and then I'll take over from there?"

He nodded, giving me a thumb's up. "Sure! Why not, on to save some wheat fields!"

We did set out, after about an hour or so spent upgrading my armor a little bit with what was left of my earnings from the day before. We weren't able to upgrade much- we were able to get me some leather pauldrons and a bronze vambrace, but my legs felt uncomfortably bare. I did appreciate the ease the system placed on wearing the armor itself though. Compared to the plate armor that I had made myself earlier that year, wearing this stuff was a breeze. It felt heavy, and kind of awkward, but I appreciated not needing to fasten any straps, or get a friend to put on some of the pieces for me. I opened the menu, selected the part of my body where the armor went, and viola, I was wearing a breastplate, and my other effects.

We took off at a bit of a run, and due to simple determination, we made it a bit farther than we had before before we had to stop, gasping for breath and on my part frustrated. Another ten minutes, and we came upon the house where, according to the player's guide that Kanto lugged around, the quest was to begin.

I nodded to him, stepped up, and knocked on the door.

It was a couple of seconds before a haggard old man threw the door open, the quest icon floating above his head.

"Ah, and what would two young fighters like yerselves doing so far inta th' woods?"

"Ah, well, we heard that you were having a problem with a worm infestation sir."

The NPC's eyes narrowed.

"Oh, an' it's been a problem! The've been eatin ma crops for the past month now, and I can't seem to get rid of them. I think that they have a nest on the east end of th' field over there. You two wouldn't be up to deal with it would ya?"

I glanced back at Kanto, who reviewed the strange brown book again before nodding.

A little window popped up in front of me.

Accept Quest: Farmer's Maggots?

I pressed the little blue dot, and from the look of it, Kanto did likewise.

"Much appreciated youngin! Now don't ferget, the little buggers like ta burrow, an' they seem to be fond of feet!"

The old man shut the door, and a map appeared in front of the two of us, showing the way to the quest location. We walked out behind the farm house, and through a cabbage patch with visible signs of being eaten by something. I drew my shortsword, and Kanto drew his own, gripping it tightly in his hands.

"Hey Kanto-" I called, "Relax your hands a bit."

I held out my own. "You want to have a firm grip- but not stone. Remember that it's a sword, not a baseball bat, you just need to control it- the blade does a surprising amount of the work."

"What, like this?" Kanto eased up his grip a bit, and while he still looked tense, he wasn't white-knuckled anymore."

"Yeah, that's better. You'll actually move quicker if you relax you muscles a little bit during the movement, and tense them again in the moment of the strike. Maybe that applies more to open hand, but, still."

He nodded, and we stepped out of the cabbage patch into a wheat field.

"Kill at least twenty of the little buggers, and we'll be able ta save the crop!" The farmer's voice called out from the farmhouse, and suddenly the ground around us erupted as worm-like maggots the size of my arm shot up out of the ground. I yelped- admittedly, batting one away from my face before thrusting down with my sword tip.

"Never mind!" I yelled. "Bat away!"

Kanto obliged, swingin his sword back and forth, knocking the two-foot long bugs away from us. The slimy things burrowed back into the ground when they hit, and I couldn't help but grin at the comical sight of their rear ends wagging back and forth as they sank into the soil.

"Ok," I muttered, watching the ground. I noticed a mound racing towards me in the dirt, and I brought the blade down right as the maggot erupted from the dirt, cutting it in half.

"Watch the dirt!" I called, "You can see their trails!"

Kanto's eyes seemed to focus then, and he set his grip on the hilt of his sword a little more confidently. A worm burst from the ground next to him, and he stomped it before stabbing down, pinning the creature's head to the ground as it wiggled desperately before bursting into thousands of blue shards.

"Nice!" I called back, as I spun, carving one in half on the ground. A maggot leapt into the air off to my left, and I whipped out a foot, slamming a side kick into the creature and sending it flying off into the wheat.

Things quieted, and I checked the map.

"Ok, looks like the nest is deeper into the field."

Kanto was actually smiling now, hopping from foot to foot.

"Ok, let's get closer."

We took a couple more steps, dashing through the grass, before we saw another furrow forming in the dirt. "11 O'clock!" I called out, setting into a stance before three worms shot up from the ground. One stabbed itself onto my waiting sword, another launched itself at Kanto, knocking him over before kanto rolled, driving his blade through the diminutive creature, but the third latched onto my leg.

I screamed in pain, bringing the hilt of my sword down against the creature's head, forcing it off of me. An angry red circle of pixels marked where it's mough had latched onto me, and I limped, growling in rage.

"That hurt." I growled, before rushing forwards and driving the blade through the creature's ugly mouth. Another one shot up, and I whipped the blade around behind me, removing it's head with a grimace. Kanto's eyes were open wide, and one of the worms snuck up on him, latching onto his ankle. He yelped, startled, before lifting his foot and cutting the creature again.

I checked the counter that appeared below our health bars: 8 worms out of 20.

I checked my health. It actually wasn't that bad- the bite had only taken off a sliver of my health. Why had it hurt so bad then? The day before I'd assumed that the pain was proportional to the amount of damage taken. I massaged the leg as I watched the ground around us, Kanto coming up next to me.

"You alright? You got pretty angry there."

"Gah, it just- it hurt like hell, you know?"

Kanto looked at me, brows furrowed. "No...Theres, no pain, in SAO. Just, like, an itch, no matter how bad the injury is."

I glanced at him. "Seriously?"

A wom interrupted the interrogation, and we dispatched it as quickly as we could.

"I expect that the worms will come at us more quickly the closer we get to the nest." I commented. "Do we stay and wait where we can expect them, or do we try to press closer?"

Kanto frowned. "I don't know."

He slashed downwards, batting a worm away with the flat of his blade. "I worry that they might swarm us if we get too close."

I nodded. "We'll go a little closer then, get them coming at us quick enough to end the quest, and then we'll make our way out?"

Kanto nodded. "Sounds good, Na'Has."

We advanced, getting closer to the nest, the pain in my leg finally subsiding. We set up back to back, and no sooner had we planted out feet into the ground, than the maggots began flying. Honestly, I don't remember much of the fight. I remember slashing out with my blade, laughing as bisected maggots burst into blue polygons of hard light around us. I remember catching one maggot that was about to latch onto Kanto's back and ripping into it with my blade, and then, there was a chime.

Quest complete- destroy 20 maggots

We fell onto the dirt, breathing hard. I glanced at our life bars, and was pleasantly surprised to see that even mine hadn't fallen all the way into the yellow yet- we were both just barely hanging on to the green. I grinned, looking back at Kanto. He was not so pleased, sitting there, grim faced, before standing, shaking as he steadied himself.

I forced my expression into a more serious one, adjusting my tunic and armor, even though I didn't really need to.

"We did pretty well I think."

Kanto grimaced. "Yeah. Still a whole day ahead of us though."

I paused. " A new quest maybe?"

Kanto frowned, checking his inventory. "Maybe. We could try selling off this worm-stuff. Don't know if any town merchants are going to buy it though."

I nodded. "Do you suppose the farmer will give us a reward if we go up to him? We completed the quest, did it all just move into our inventory?"

Kanto finally grinned. "It did indeed! 30 cor for each worm we killed! Congrats, Jean Na'Has of California, we're almost well off today!"

I smiled. Glancing back at him. "Some food then?"

He nodded. "We can reserve that room in the inn for another night too, if we wanted. We've got nearly 300 cor just from today. Enough to eat continuously, maybe even buy some creme or some thing- I hear that there are quest other players have completed that give you some, we could try to buy some, make this stale bread they sell all over this floor more palatable."

I nodded, Holding out a hand for a fist bump.

"Sounds good to me."

We set off back towards the town, and Kanto actually started laughing as I asked him what the funniest thing he had seen so far was. I don't remember what he said, I just remember a large worm-like creature, probably about six feet long, suddenly racing through the undergrowth and barroling into Kanto, knocking him from beside me. I watched his health drop from green to mid-yellow in an instant, and I spun, blade hissing from my sheath as I whipped my arm up for the thrusting sword-strike that I'd discovered the day before. I lashed out, stabbing into the lithe, almost scaly, worm with yell. It reared up, issuing some kind of hissing bellow, before turning to face me, leaving Kanto on the ground. My sword flashed, and the creature reared again before slamming it's weight down onto me, sending me rolling through the underbrush. I heard the sound of a sword-skill going off, and I forced myself to my feet, watching Kanto's health drop again.

"Mierda, No!" I raced back into the fray, leaping into the air as I lifted the blade up above me, roaring as I brought it down, hacking down into the worm, my blade glowing crimson as it bore down.

I hacked almost halfway through the scaly creature's bulk, it's red health-bar shrinking rapidly as it flailed about. I held on for dear life, the world spinning blurrily as the creature tried to shake me off ot its back. I heard a thump, and a yell, and Kanto's health dropped down into the red.

"NO!" I bellowed, and removed my blade from it's back to stab again.

I went flying, my grip lost, and I rolled along the ground best as I could, struggling with my awkward body to maintain the control that I had had in life.

The worm reared up towards me now, toothy maw open in a screech that left me nearly deaf to to the things proximity. It lunged, and I was too slow to bring my sword up, the creature biting onto my shoulder. I screamed, struggling as my own life dropped down almost to the red.

There was a yell, and a flash, and the creature screamed, shuddering, before bursting into blue sparks.

Kanto stood a short ways off, visibly shaken, and glancing through the underbrush like a prairie dog surveyed a field for predators.

I forced myself to my feet, cradling my left arm, where the creature had gotten me. I felt so, so tired right then. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears, could feel the ache in my muscles.

Kanto rushed over, and helped me to stand.

"To town, quickly."

He glanced at me apologetically. "Apparently, there's not even time for conversation."

He got a message shortly after we made it back into town. A friend of his, asking for help back in beginner's town.

"Sorry, Jean, I need to go help Makto. He saved me from a tight spot back in the beginning, I can't leave him hanging now."

I nodded. "No worries friend. Thanks for helping me today and yesterday. I wouldn't have made it without your help."

He smiled, swiping down to call the menu, pressing a button. A friend request apparated in the air before me, and I grinned, pressing accept without a second thought. I offered him a fist, and he bumped his own against it.

"If you need anything Kanto, just send me a message. I'll do what I can to be there."

He chuckled. "Same to you, although… I doubt you'll need my help. I figure you'll be up there with the skilled, you, you have drive. You belong up there at the front."

He glanced forlornly off to a giant pillar we could see in the distance, then back in the direction of Beginners town.

"Me...Well...I think today confirmed that, I- I don't think I belong there, not yet."

He smiled sadly. " See you, Jean Na'Has. Take care of yourself. Don't die being brave and everything."

He gave me one last concerned glance. "You, you felt pain, back there?"

I nodded. "I thought it was just, normal. I'm guessing it's not?"

Kanto shook his head. "You got a tough luck my friend. I hope they fix the glitches in your gear."

He walked off into the crowd, leaving me standing alone in the square of the village, among thatched rooves and simple brick walls.

"You have no idea." I whispered.