Alright, I think I understand now. You guys don't fully appreciate my efforts and are just here to read.

That's totally fine, honestly. Like, I genuinely do get it. But from now on, i'm posting this story for me and me alone. Obviously, you all still get to read it and enjoy it, but I'm making my own decisions now and writing what I want. So if some of Y'all don't like the direction I take this in, my apologies but that's how it is.

Speaking of which, Flo463, thank you for being the ONLY person to take part in the poll. To show you my gratitude, I'll make your answers to the poll be how I take this story. I hope I do your vision justice.

Ok, enough rambling, enjoy the chapter :D

Kazuto was woken from his sleep to sounds of someone else finally waking up from SAO. He watched as Shino Asada slowly rose with morning-like moans and stretches before sitting up completely.

"Did you get my message?" Kazuto asked the drowsy girl to his left,

"Yeah, sorry I didn't see it before, I was doing a quest with Toran," She said lazily. Kazuto was slightly taken aback at the realization that they really were doing something together. "We had to defeat a Nightmare Ox, it was pretty rough but we managed," Kazuto knew exactly what quest she was talking about seen as, back in the old SAO, he had done that quest by himself by tricking the quest giver into thinking that he was with another player.

"How is he by the way? Toran, I mean," Kazuto asked the yawning girl.

"Totally fine. At this rate, I reckon he'll start fitting right in no time," She answered as she stood up and looked around.

"Oh, by the way, Andrew's gone to a café nearby to have some early morning breakfast and wanted me to ask everyone if they wanted to join him when they wake up. So, I'm just waiting for you all." Kazuto said as the thought of some eggs benedict or maybe even french toast with bananas made his stomach rumble. Asada nearly let out a laugh as she watched him fantasize about food. Just then, Doctor Kawahara swung around in his office chair and suggested an idea.

"Why don't you kids go on ahead to the café and I'll let everyone know as they wake up," The computer doctor gave the two a friendly thumbs up and they said their thanks before walking towards the door. However, just before he had reached the exit, something that Asada had said reminded him of something he wanted to ask.

"Sorry Asada, I just need to do one thing real quick, I'll meet you and Andrew at the café. If you leave the building through the main entrance and take a right, you should see Andrew sitting at a table but if not, it's about a block and a half down the road," After giving her instructions, Asada shrugged and left the room. That left Kazuto with the confidence to speak what was on his mind. "Hey Doctor Kawahara, if it's possible, can you locate the avatar known as Toran through your computer? The day team said that they couldn't find a user by that name, but I want to know if that was just a mistake or if something strange is going on."

The computer doctor eyed him curiously and considered his request. His job wasn't to take favors from his boss' clients, and Kazuto would fully understand if this was his answer, but despite that, the doctor couldn't see any reason to refuse a simple little favor.

"Tell you what, kid. Me and Nurse Aki only have about an hour before the day team takes over and I've also got some other business I'm working on currently. But I'll be sure to look into your issue tomorrow night when I'm less busy, you have my word." Kazuto bowed multiple times in thanks to the computer doctors gesture and departed for the café. He had always had a small premonition that something was strange about Toran and could clearly see that he wasn't going to get any answers from the guy himself. So although he felt kind of bad for doing something like this behind his new friends back, he just had to know what was (or wasn't) up so that he could put that premonition to rest.

After he arrived at the café and reunited with Andrew and Asada, he ordered a nice steamy plate of eggs benedict. Just before his food came out, the rest of his friends started to slowly join them. First, it was Asuna and Rika, then Suguha and Keiko, and then lastly, Ryotaro brought up the rear. Once all of them had at least ordered food, they got to talking about the mission so far.

"Man, it's been a long time since I've played for that long in one sitting," Ryotaro said as he stretched his arms above his head.

"It's not like we had much of a choice though," Keiko stated.

"Yeah and on that note, it was quite scary thinking that we were stuck in SAO again," Rika commented, making everyone remember how it scared them as well.

"At least this time it seems that it actually was a bug," Kazuto added. "Nothing a good ol' computer mastermind can't fix."

"I was almost sure that I wouldn't be smelling the fresh air of the real world for a while, what a relief," Asuna said with a sigh as she took in another deep breath.

"It was actually quite an interesting experience though," Suguha admitted, getting a few confused looks before she continued. "It was like getting a small teaser of what you guys went through eighteen months ago," Asada nodded in full agreement to her statement.

"God, I wouldn't wish something like that on anyone, even if I hated them," Andrew commented, to which everyone agreed. Rika did, however, have a thought.

"Y'know, I've been thinking, can you imagine what things would be like if Kayaba had never done what he did and SAO proceed as a normal game?" she asked, causing everyone to delve deep into thought.

"I get the feeling that we all would've somehow met each other in the end," Asuna said, to which everyone smiled and agreed.

"I've always had a sort of similar thought go through my head every now and then," Kazuto admitted, but he took a quick bite of his eggs before continuing. "You guys ever wonder what floors 76 through to 100 looked like? Cause I'll be honest, I really want to get to floor 76 as fast as possible so that I can actually have a new SAO experience."

"I'm with ya there, all I've really been thinking about is how much of a drag it's going to be to have to redo two whole years of work," Ryotaro said in reply, causing everyone to laugh a little.

"It's not too bad though, remember that we also have around six and a half thousand other people to help us get there, and that number won't ever deplete either since there's no perma-death." Asada reminded everyone of the relieving facts. As they continued to talk about their current situation, their food also started to arrive and they had a well deserved morning feast. After everyone had just finished, Kazuto suddenly jumped up from his chair, scaring those next to him.

"Ah, shit, I forgot!" He shouted as he bolted out of the restaurant and made a beeline for the hospital where their mission was taking place. Asuna went to call out to him but he was gone in an instant.

"What in the world was that?" Rika asked after the utter confusion had somewhat subsided.

"I'll bet ya 100¥ that he's supposed to be helping someone right now but lost track of time," Suguha said as she sipped her iced tea. The more they all thought about it, the more accurate it seemed.

"He'll never change, will he?" Asuna claimed as she smiled. After all, it was this part of him that she secretly loved most of all.

"Link Start!" Kazuto commanded with a raised voice. The moment he said it, his consciousness left the real world and took on the persona of The Black Swordsman, Kirito in the all too familiar world of Aincrad. How many times had he said those words and become this avatar of his? Surely it was well into the triple digits by now. Before his avatar even had time to fully materialize, he could already hear the sounds of fists striking a boulder, a clear indication of his tardiness.

"Took ya long enough," Argo spat with an unusually cold tone as she hit the rock again.

"Sorry Argo," Kirito apologized deeply. "Some stuff happened IRL and I kinda lost track of time."

"I can tell," She said without even looking his way.

"I promise I'll be here for the rest of the time, I won't even log out at night. So please forgive me!" Kirito pleaded as he put his hands together and bowed. Finally, Argo stopped punching at looked his way.

"You promised you would be here until I finished this before, didn't you? Glad to see your so trustworthy nowadays," Argo's obviously sarcastic words cut Kirito deep, it was something he never wanted to hear from a friend, he had to fix it.

"I really mean it, Argo, I'll do anything you say, I swear on my parents grave!" His plead was louder and he bowed even further. Argo walked over to him with a cold gaze.

"Anything?" She said with curiosity sneaking into her tone of voice.

"Anything! You have my word," Kirito put his all into his apology. So in reply, Argo leaned down so that she was right next to his ear and spoke softly.

"Then how about you sleep with me tonight?" Her words were as soft as they were seductive and Kirito thrust back up to a normal standing position.

"Wh-What!?" He shouted in surprise as he took a small step back. However, before he could say any more, Argo burst out in a fit of hysteria.

"OH MY GOD, YOU SHOULD'A SEEN YOUR FACE! THAT WAS PRICELESS!" Argo barely managed to form words during her laughing seizure. Kirito just frowned as he watched the hood wearing girl slowly recover. "Thanks, Kii-bou, I needed that laugh," She said as she wiped a tear from her eye before noticing his face. "Ah c'mon Kii-bou, I was just teasing ya. It gets kinda boring just punching a big old boulder with no one to talk to."

"Glad I could be the victim of your comedy acts," Kirito said, still frowning at her sense of humor attempt. "But, I am still sorry for not being here when you started."

"No, it's okay. I forgive you," Argo said as she walked back over to the boulder with Kirito. "Plus, it gave me some time focus more on my physical attack damage." Kirito had just realized how much she had done since the night before as she spoke.

"When did you wake up and start continuing?" He asked her, she got back to periodic punches while she replied.

"I got up right around the crack of dawn, so I've been at it for roughly two hours now." She admitted, causing Kirito to gawk in surprise.

"Two hours!? It took me two days to do this much damage!" While he was certainly surprised, he was quite relieved as well. "At this rate, you'll have this done by noon tomorrow then."

"Yeah, turns out that Trembling Ox occasionally spawns around here so I managed to get one to ram into the rock a couple of times. Easily knocked out about an entire day's worth of damage I would say," She said happily. Kirito silently cursed himself for being unaware of this method previously but also felt a relieving sensation at the realization that this wouldn't take as long as he thought. "You know something about this, don't you Kii-bou." She said suddenly. He must've accidentally worn an expression while in his thoughts.

"About what?" He asked in hope that it wasn't what he thought it was.

"Y'know, about the sudden restart of SAO," Of course it was what he thought it was. "You have that urgent look in your eye," Argo had briefly stopped attacking the boulder in hopes that he would answer and honestly, part of him did want to tell her the truth, but since this was a government mission, he felt it only right to lie to her. For now at least.

"I'm just as confused as you are," he claimed, "But I'm starting to get behind the idea of a second chance at beating SAO, and a much safer one at that." As hard as he tried to be convincing, Argo's reaction made him feel like she didn't believe him at all. But she didn't try to push it any further and even played along with his lie.

"I get the feeling there's something a little fishy going on, but I don't have any leads right now," She said, causing Kirito to remember that she was indeed an information broker so of course, she would be trying her damnedest to get information like that. She would then probably sell that information for unbelievable amounts of cor and that's the part where Kirito's trust in her waned a bit.

Of course, it's not that he didn't trust in his friend, but her ability to keep secrets was solely based on money. If she was given enough cash, she would tell anyone anything, and that's why he decided to keep his mission from her. Argo got back to hitting the boulder while Kirito watched and continued giving advice every now and then.

"This is just a recommendation, but why not try attacking it at different angles?" Kirito suggested after he realized that she had just been hitting the exact same spot this entire time. "It's a common way of thinking to assume that attacking the same spot of something will do more damage, and that does go for actual enemies and bosses with weak spots. But with objects like rocks and boulders, it's actually more efficient to go at it at different angles every now and then," He explained.

"How so?" Argo quickly asked in between attacks.

"Take a boulder like this one, for example, if you attack the same spot continuously, you'll do a lot of damage to that side, but the opposite side of the rock will remain untouched for a long time. However, if you attack it from different angles, even just two, the damage will spread more rapidly throughout the entire body from multiple points rather than expanding from just one," Kirito explained as if a mental image had appeared before him similar to the way an office worker explains a business idea through a powerpoint presentation. "Basically, to maximize damage, you want to weaken the core of the object from multiple sides to minimize its durability. The more attack points you have, the easier it is to weaken the core. But in turn, the more attack points you have, the less damage you do to the surface of the rock. So the safest bet is to attack from around two or three points." Argo took the information in and walked around to the opposite side of the boulder in search of a good second attack point.

"Should I start from where the Trembling Ox rammed into it?" She asked him. Upon inspection, Kirito saw that the damage from the Ox was about twenty inches left of the complete opposite face so after a moment of thought, he made a suggestion

"The most efficient way would be to attack from the exact opposite face, so I recommend that," He announced as Argo quickly got to work on the opposite face of her rocky acquaintance. She didn't say anything about it but she did get a small feeling of annoyance at having to punch a fresh looking boulder again.

Over the next hour or so, Argo obtained a certain level of silence as Kirito went to deal with a bunch of Windwasps that had just spawned about twenty meters from her current position. Argo tried to maintain her usual level of concentration but found herself sub-consciously staring in awe at his way of fighting. Windwasps were considered quite troublesome to many, despite their mediocre stats, but the way he moved his swords and his body to avoid taking any damage while dealing the maximum was mesmerizing.

It wasn't until he called out to her to stop slacking off did she snap herself out of it and focus on the real task. Unbeknownst to Argo however, Kirito actually had a reason for fighting the Windwasps. If memory served him right, low-level weapons, and a small portion high-level ones as well, needed an item called 'Needle of Windwasp' in order to enhance the weapons stats and make it more powerful.

His elucidator and dark repulsor were already well into the +40's so there was no chance of him being able to enhance his swords in these lower floors. But since Toran, Sinon, Leafa and Klein were low leveled, their weapons could get great enhancement boosts from items like these. So, Kirito had occasionally slaughtered a few colonies of Windwasps whenever they spawned near him. However, the Needle of Windwasps was a rare drop. The chance of them dropping was only 8% so even though Kirito had killed almost a hundred of them, he had only picked up five of said item.

"Ugh, I hate rare item drop rates," He complained as he killed the last two Windwasps simultaneously. There were about eighteen wasps in the group that had spawned near them and only one of them dropped a Needle of Windwasp.

Players usually needed a fair amount of the item in order to enhance their weapon so Kirito judged that with the six that he had, two of his four low leveled friends would be able to enhance. His thoughts were interrupted by Argo offering a brief lunch break by the boulder so they chowed down on their respective foods. Argo had a takeaway pack of Teriyaki Onigiri from the restaurant in Urbus while Kirito chowed down on some homemade sandwiches that Asuna had made for everyone.

By the time they finished their lunch break, it was roughly 1 pm so Argo got right back to the quest. At this point though, Kirito was finding the whole process a bit tedious. He really didn't have much to do since rarely anything spawned within their vicinity and now he was starting to run out of tips to give Argo. In fact, he really didn't know if she needed any more help. The only silver lining for him was the fact that she would most definitely be done with the quest by midday tomorrow.

About half an hour had passed with dead silence from his end and he was starting to think that maybe if he showed signs of boredom, Argo would let him go kill some field monsters at the bottom of the hill. But alas, he was saved by the sudden sound of something spawning roughly around where the Windwasps had previously been, and better yet, it was a Trembling Ox.

"Kirito, could you maybe get that thing to ram into the rock like the last one? I lost about a third of my health dealing with the last one so it's your turn." Argo said to him when she noticed the Ox. Kirito tried with failure not to show his happiness at having something fun to do and ran over to the Ox to start his baiting. The common way to make an enemy like an Ox charge at you was to attack it with something long range like a rock or blunt arrow in order to minimalize damage, to which the Ox would then get angry and charge.

But Kirito's way of doing it was, while a lot riskier, a hell of a lot more fun. The general premise was to wait for it to look in the opposite direction, then sneak up on it and jump on it's back. The Ox would then get angry and try to buck you off. If you got bucked off then the chances of being able to try again were nil, but if you stayed on for long enough, the Ox would resort to running into things to knock you off, during which it's possible to slightly maneuver the animal to make it hit something you want, like a boulder in this case.

"Showtime!" Kirito announced in his thoughts as he snuck up behind the Ox (which was no trouble since he had one of the highest sneak stats in the game). As soon as the Ox lowered its head to eat some grass, Kirito leaped on to the back of the Ox and with a loud call, it fiercely bucked around in a desperate attempt to through the wannabe cowboy to the ground. But Kirito did not let up one bit and rodeo'ed his way to a successful victory over the Ox's bucking.

But now came the interesting part. After a brief huff and kick, the Ox bolted towards the nearest thing it could see, a nearby tree. Kirito decided the best course of action here would be to brace himself for the impact and use the Ox's knockback to angle it towards the boulder so he readied himself as the Ox drew closer to the tree. Unfortunately, however, Kirito had underestimated the Ox.

Before he even knew what had happened, the Ox skidded to an abrupt stop and sent the unprepared Kirito flying head first into the base of the tree. The resounding thud of someone's head coming in contact with a solid object at dangerous speeds made Argo cringe as she watched Kirito flop lifelessly onto the ground. Had he been a low leveled player, he would've died instantly or at least, come dangerously close to it. But since he was lucky enough to have inherited his previous avatar, his health only dropped by about 35%. As he blinked rapidly and finally started to comprehend what had just happened, the Ox got on its hind legs and prepared for a stomping attack.

Realizing this, Kirito ignored the pain for just a moment so he could escape danger and rolled away just in time to dodge the stomp. But it didn't stop there, the Ox quickly switched into rage mode and started chasing after Kirito who screamed in horror and ran his heart out in the opposite direction. The Ox was obviously faster than him in a straight line but Kirito could at least outmaneuver it in quick movements.

It didn't take long for him to realize that there was still a chance he could get the Ox to ram the boulder so after another side step, he headed for the boulder. Argo sensed the screaming man's intentions and backed well away from the rock. As Kirito neared the boulder, he had one more decision to made. Leap to the left or right just in time? Or dive over the boulder to lessen the chances of the Ox missing. Ultimately, he decided on the latter and when he got close enough, he momentarily bent down and launched himself as high as he could. The height he gained was just barely enough as his stomach scrapped against the tip but he was more concerned with whether his plan had worked, and the ear piercing thud that quickly followed told him that it had.

"Having fun there?" Argo sarcastically asked as she walked over to him. Kirito didn't reply immediately though because he was too busy trying to calm himself down. If virtual sweat was a thing, he would be absolutely drenched in it.

"Remind me never to do that again," He finally said as he got up from his prone position.

And another chapter closes...

Since we had a battle scene last chapter, I decided to make this one fun and light-hearted.

Also, I apologize if I wrote Argo out of character at times. Seen as we (or at least, i) know so little about her, I decided to play around and add my own little mixture into her character smoothie.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter and look forward to more!

pls excuse all grammar mistakes, proofreading ain't my strong suit.