"Kirito! It's winding up for an unfamiliar move!"

Kirito already knew that it was the new ultimate move for the goblin chief boss of the third floor. He took the usual stance, readying himself to counter. The boss' health was only a little away from running out, and it would be defeated by its own ultimate attack. When it finished readying the club in its hands and threw itself with the club toward him, Kirito dodged just as the prompt came and unleashed the counter skill, depleting the last of the health in the final strike. A slash from the back of the head to the right hip. The giant goblin chief shattered into pixels and the victory music played.

"Kirito really is too powerful and knowledgeable about these lower floor bosses...he might clear up to floor ten by the end of next week."

The last hit bonus item dropped and the screen showed in front of Kirito what it was.

"Ah, something for Asuna. A rapier with high speed, strength and dexterity stats. It's a great drop!"

He opened the trading screen with her and sent it over. The new weapon equipped at her hip, she drew it to check just how impressive it was. When she unleashed her currently fastest skill in half the time she was able to use it before, everyone's jaw dropped.

"We should check if you can defeat a dungeon monster in one use of that skill! It would be a super fast way of levelling!"

Kirito was thrilled at anything that would improve the group's overall chance of getting through the game. Asuna was steadily improving and maybe it was because she was getting more used to the skill system along with the consistency with how she handled a rapier in real life.

For Kirito and Leafa, the one hand swords were quite different from a kendo sword and the skills were also different and made it awkward when practising kendo swings and strikes as their regular attacks on weaker enemies.

"This skill wasn't there before the boss..."

Sinon was confused about a skill. Kirito walked over to her but he remembered they were still in the boss room.

"Let's all take this up to the next floor and check everything else at an inn. I'm sure everyone else would be pleased to hear we're progressing up Aincrad so fast."

When they finished activating the teleport gate, they went to a nearby inn and Sinon had them all listen to the name of a new skill tree which showed up in her menu.

"Shooting skill...but...there's no guns in this game since it's fantasy like, and there wasn't anything like bows in beta. Maybe there's more skills for throwing type items?"

Kirito was puzzled, but since he had a bit of time invested in wood crafting skill and plenty of wooden weapon type materials from the goblin dungeon, he took them outside and tried checking if a bow was a wood crafting option.

"...bow. It's there. Just a second..."

Sinon was shocked stiff. If she could use a bow in the game...then she could fight in the way she was most comfortable before. With the rest of the group keeping enemy attention, she could safely fire a bow from a distance.

"There's nothing for arrows, but I got a bow with decent stats from a basic craft. Try it Sinon."

He handed it over to her, and when she held the bow, a quiver showed up at her waist with some arrows in it. Maybe they would replenish as she fired them?

"I thought this was supposed to be a melee only type of fighting game..."

Kirito was puzzled. Everyone else but Sinon was puzzled and curious why the skill showed up for her.

"Oh...! There was something in the beta manual! Rare skills can be obtained through different kinds of play style. Maybe since Sinon often fell back and observed to learn enemy attack patterns she developed a long range skill. Maybe I could develop that too...it would be nice to hold a bow again."

Sinon smiled when he mentioned holding a bow again. Leafa was also happy to hear him talk fondly of something he enjoyed before.

"It's disappointing that kind of thing isn't in the smithing skills. It would be interesting to see a modern super-flex bow in the game."

Lisbeth had her mind on something more suited to the profession she was working on. Kirito was very interested in using a bow, and if nothing would continue to drop from the floors for the shooting skill Sinon had and he would aim to have, then it would be worth it to invest more time into the wood crafting skill.

"I'll work on crafting and enhancing bows for a while if the rest of you want to practice against the new floor...if it's the same as last time, there should be some treant enemies to gather some more wood items. That would help the crafting of wood items for me for now...crafting weapon type would be...basic level is carving knife so not an actual weapon type obtainable through chests... Can you craft a carving knife for me and a...saw?"

When checking the required gear for the best possible wood crafting, those were the names that showed up. Kirito was confused there was also plenty of leather armours with perks for crafting, so he might work on that as well. He was really becoming a crafter...it felt a little disappointing compared to how it was when he was usually playing the game. He could power level and handle everything with basic skill. There were things which were more valuable and worth the investing time this time around. He might run floors again like he had in the morning, but he wouldn't do it as often anymore. He might have been lucky with the first bow because of his base level being so high. He was already level thirty five, and the floor clearing had reached floor four, so it was a high level for him to be at already.

Lisbeth went with his suggestion, and Kirito was given over a rather strong saw and carving knife for working on his wood crafting skill. He just about started working on grinding his crafting level up, then apparently he hadn't realized where he had set himself up. Apparently had was operating in a good place for setting up as a vendor.

"Could you craft me a strong pole item for the craft of an axe?"

After that person, he was immediately addressed by another person. That continued to go until the girls decided it would be better to go and gather him some materials before he would run out with the customers he was building up.

"Could...could you craft me a taming flute?"

A young boy who seemed much younger than the minimum age for using NerveGear asked Kirito that question. When he noticed a quest marker appear above the boy's head, Kirito nodded his head, opened the crafting menu again and the taming flute item showed up at the bottom as a new craft possibility. Kirito smiled and wondered if it would be possible to tame pets with the use of the item.

After successfully crafting the flute, the quest didn't seem to finish even after passing it over the the npc boy.

"Are you going out to tame in a dangerous area?"

There currently weren't anymore customers lining up for him, so it was an okay opportunity to do the full quest.

The little boy npc nodded his head and looked at Kirito with an expression as if waiting for anything else.

"I'd like to go and do a little training and gathering, so it'll be good to go with you. It'll be safer for you, right?"

The npc nodded his head, turned around and slowly led Kirito out of the new town on the fourth floor. As he remembered, most of the fourth floor was a massive forest. When he tried to remember, the floor boss was a giant treant and it had hornet minions which spawned. It was a floor that would require a bigger party than usual. The real focus currently was the quest with the young npc.

The young boy led Kirito immediately into the forested area. It seemed he had a specific goal. After Kirito dispatched a few dozen weaker treant along the way, they finally arrived at a clearing where a treant as large as the floor boss had been before stood in the centre in front of a few ground nests of some different kinds of birds he hadn't seen before. When he saw them, he was instantly reminded of a cute bird character in a manga he had read a while back. He honestly felt like taming one of the birds as well.

"Let me take care of the big monster first, okay? Then we'll go help you tame your new friend."

After Kirito said that, the little boy nodded his head and smiled. It felt a lot...more than a typical npc smile. Maybe it was because most npcs he saw were adults, but it was...adorable. It was getting at his feminine side.

After ensuring the npc wouldn't enter the battling arena, Kirito started the fight by quickly building a run, dashing in with sonic leap for the bonus damage, hopped back out of a stunning strike like the pattern with the golem, dashed back in with a regular power sonic strike, and continued to unleash regular strikes which reminded him a lot that his kendo technique wasn't likely to survive the time in the game. He felt like changing up how he was fighting the monster, but at that moment, a new attack he didn't recognize was coming from the treant.

Just barely on time, Kirito managed to use the parrying skill and regain all of his skill points so he could finish the battle with his one hand sword ultimate skill. While the skill ended the fight and defeated the treant, it didn't feel fulfilling. He was reminded during the fight that he was falling away from his kendo. At least earlier he felt hopeful that he might eventually be able to keep up with his archery in the game, but even that might not help keep him in his habits.

"It-it's okay, we should be fine for you to tame your new friend."

Kirito nearly forgot that he had that temptation. To tame one for himself. He sat down and opened up his crafting menu. After a moment, he managed to craft another taming flute. Before he even had the chance to use it, when the flute was finished, three of the bird creatures stood on the crafting table. They looked at the flute, and then all turned up to Kirito and kept on chirping. They were a special type of bird. They had very round heads, small bodies and massive wings which folded over their body made them look larger. However, when they did have their wings folded over like that, they also looked adorable. Like featherballs. He smiled at them, and they all hopped on his lap, chirping at him and hopping around, having fun there. Kirito couldn't help but laugh.

"Did you tame your friend?"

The npc boy had one of the birds sitting on his shoulder snuggling against his neck. There was a continue marker over his head for the quest, so it must be time to bring him back to the town to finish the quest.

Before that...Kirito softly reached over the birds which gathered on his lap and picked up the flute, blowing softly into the reed and unfortunately it scared off the birds on his lap. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. He had hope though since the flute was unlimited use. If the end of the quest didn't limit the crafting of more, then he would be able to help other people go out and find creatures to tame.

He was reminded that he didn't know much if anything about the taming system in the game and while escorting the boy back to town, in safe areas where monsters weren't spawning, he read up on it. Apparently monsters which were fought couldn't be tamed unless they were...it was a dismal kind of experience so that was out of the question. Other types of creatures which could be tamed were passive creatures which could even show up in safe zones. Such creatures ranged from small rodents, to birds, to puppies and kittens, baby forms of monsters and even the ultimate rare type, a feathery dragon type. Even the taming system had its rarity level, so he was becoming more interested.

Pets could help their tamers in battle with small enhancements to defence, attack, speed, anything that would effect the stats during battle. They could only focus on a certain type of buff however. There was even a type of action for the feathery dragon monster which allowed it to heal its tamer. That seemed to be the most valuable skill for pets, especially with this being made into a death game.

A scream sounded from deep down another path through the forest. The scream was shouting to warn off some beasts which...didn't seem to belong in a forest with treant and mushroom type monsters. They were short minotaur beasts which normally wouldn't show up at least until floor 10 previously in beta.

"Feel like helping someone out today?"

The npc child nodded his head, almost a bright excitedness in his eyes, and he followed Kirito to the source of the scream. When they arrived, it was barely in time that Kirito was able to chain use of his sonic leap skill. He managed to cut down all of the minotaur monsters surrounding a girl who seemed to be somewhere between his age and that of the npc. She turned her gaze up from the ground with a tearful expression on her face and saw Kirito standing there.

"Ah!"

She looked back down as if something even more frightening than the minotaur had appeared.

"Are you running away from someone?"

She heard his feminine voice and turned to look up at him again, and she managed to calm down.

"There were...scary guys following me in town, so I ran to this forest because apparently it isn't hard to fight here and...and...those things showed up and surrounded me. Did you just beat all of them right now? So fast?"

She ended up stuttering her words. It was cute and reminded him of when Shino was getting used to some harder words when they were really young. He couldn't help but smile.

"I'm Kirito, also known as the black haired swordswoman of the lead groups. Glad to be of help. Was there something else you were doing in town? Did you want me to go back with you and teach those scary guys a lesson?"

She finally noticed the npc boy waiting for them behind Kirito and asked if Kirito was on a quest he needed to do.

"Ah right, this quest was to help the npc character by crafting them a taming flute and guide them through the forest to a dangerous mid-level boss monster guarding a small bird nest area. After the boss is defeated, the npc can tame a bird and then the quest returns to town, so we heard you on the way back."

The little bird chirped as if to respond to mention of it and laughed along with the npc child with the sound of its chirping.

"Let's go back together."

The young player grabbed Kirito's hand and blushed a little.

"I'm...still really low level. Thank you Kirito-san. Please help me get back to town safely."

The young girl with medium brown hair and had her eye colour scheme changed to red in the game had put her hair up in twin tails, but that seemed as if she was playing herself up a bit. She would do better with a hanging tail, just letting her hair down or having it treated to be wavy. Those really seemed to suit her face much more than the twin tail appearance.

As soon as they were out of the forest, the girl hopped ahead of Kirito and turned and smiled at him.

"Thank you again Kirito-san!"

She was about to run off back to town, but he stopped her by sending a friend request. When he noticed the name Silica for the girl running off, he smiled. It was a pretty name.

"I think it would be good if you let me help you level up some time. Help you get into some good equipment. I also think you would benefit a lot from the taming system. If you accept the friend request, I'll be able to find you and help you if you're ever having trouble with people again. I was kind of hoping you'd let me teach those scary guys a lesson..."

She laughed and started walking back toward Kirito. He caught up to her, and they entered the town together. When they were safely on the other side of the wall separating the town from the field of monsters, the quest finally ended for the young npc.

"Thank you so much for helping me find my new friend. Please, take this."

The quest reward window opened and the reward that showed there made Kirito a little embarrassed.

"If I'd only waited..."

"What was the quest reward Kirito-san?"

Silica seemed genuinely curious.

"A fine tuned taming flute. It actually has a percentage chance unlike the other one made for the quest. Maybe that's why it failed when I used an extra quest item..."

He opened his crafting menu to check something. When he got to the bottom of the list, indeed the quest item taming flute was gone, but it was replaced with the quest reward. Required items was a treant core, fine timber and feathers. He had everything needed for crafting the item, so he sat down, started the process and stood up, handing over the successful crafted one which had an even higher chance of success than his.

"As I said, Silica-chan could really use the help of a fine tamed friend, so have this, and we'll see about finding you a friend soon. If you find something called a feathery dragon, be sure to try your best on it – and let me know where you found it so I can match with you."

She smiled at Kirito as if he told a joke.

"Kirito-san is way too generous. At least...it seems those scary guys are already too afraid to come close anymore when they see I'm with you. Kirito-san must be very strong."

"Want to know a secret Silica-chan? I'm currently the highest level. I'm at level thirty five already. Also, keep this a secret...I defeated the second floor boss alone. Me and my good friends beat the third floor boss together today too. Silica can join me and my friends when you become stronger."

Silica became very excited when she heard what kind of offer she was getting.

"Kirito-san is like an amazing big sister. Is it...is it okay if I call Kirito Onee-chan?"

If Silica was going to join the group of his friends, then she would find out in a much more awkward way. That he was actually a boy...although it seemed nearly decided they would refer to him as female while in the game. He couldn't make up his mind. It didn't feel right to lie to Silica though.

"Silica can call me Onee-chan...but the game made a mistake and outside of the game I'm an Onii-chan. If Silica remembers that, then I'm be happy to be your big sibling."

She giggled and poked him softly and looked at him like he was joking.

"Kirito is so funny..."

"When you meet my other friends, they'll tell you. Two of them I know outside of the game. One's my cousin, and the other is my best friend. My cousin also calls me Onii-chan outside of the game, and my best friend's younger brother called me both. It won't be too different from normal if you call me Onee-chan."

"Kirito-san is a...boy who looks like a girl? Kirito is so much like a big sister though. So kind and you don't have that pervert look in your eyes like other boys."

"I'm just not a pervert. Oh, since we stood here so long, it looks like you get the chance to meet the rest of my friends right now."

Sinon Leafa Asuna and Lisbeth all walked in through the gate for the town shortly after he said that. They noticed Kirito talking to Silica and Leafa seemed to be interested for some unknown reason, Asuna and Lisbeth seemed disappointed and Sinon seemed to try looking away.

"Welcome back everyone, I just helped Silica here out after getting attacked by some minotaur monsters in the nearby forest during a quest. I gave her a taming flute I was able to craft after completing the quest. Come on, please introduce yourselves to her. I'm thinking of helping her level up and maybe she could join us later. If she gets a feathery dragon pet, that pet can use a healing skill, so it'll be great to have along."

"That sounds much better than Kirito trying to be a big sibling to someone else...or being a pervert. Kirito isn't like that though. You'd almost think he's traumatized with what the game did to him..."

Leafa managed to say it all. She said exactly everything, loud enough that everyone could hear it, but thankfully only Silica and the rest of the group would understand.

"Kirito really is then... Can...can Kirito and your friends help me level up and catch up to you? I want to help Kirito too."

After that, Silica and the rest made sure they all had each other on their friends list and Kirito got back to work at crafting levelling up. He managed to fill his inventory of wood and other crafting supplies, enough to make even more of the taming flute. Since that item had a high crafting experience gain for his level, he made many of them, and put them on sale in town. He kept the strongest ones for himself and Silica in the end, selling even the quest reward to customers who came until evening. Kirito sold a lot of wood craft items and enhanced a lot of items that day. The next day...he might work on leather working a bit maybe it would be just as intense. He could level those crafting skills and eventually be able to make incredibly strong leather light armour for base gear, Lisbeth could craft metal weapons and armour pieces, and he would also be able to craft high quality materials for her weapon crafting, and make him and Sinon very powerful bows.

"Oh, the bow was incredible today Kirito! You should have seen it! The starting skill for shooting skill is a piercing strike which gets a very powerful critical strike when you hit an enemy's weak point - I defeated a mushroom mid-boss in a single shot!"

Sinon was very impressed and confident in how overpowered it seemed the shooting skill was. Now Kirito wanted the skill even more.