Johnny watched as the branch drew back and prepared to spear towards Koharu. Payton cried out and swung wildly at the branches that held her back, but she was too well restrained.
And it had all been going so well. The boss fight had stared on time, and the players had cleared the adds with mechanical efficiency, before turning to the boss. Like a swarm of gardeners they slowly cut the Treant to shreds. Those few with lightning elemental weapons stepped forwards and put Argo's information to use, dealing immense amounts of damage that sheared off large chunks of the boss's [Health].
In all honesty, the fight was still going well. For most players. Except that Koharu had made a misstep and tripped. As if the world was conspiring against her continued existence, Payton had at that moment found herself dealing with an onslaught of branches, and found herself unable to go to her friend's aid.
Kirito noticed, but on the other side of the boss, he would be unable to reach her in time. Asuna was much the same, fighting side-by-side with Kirito. Argo was too slow to even consider reaching her, and Klein too busy fending off his own barrage of branches. Nezha hadn't yet noticed her fellow player's predicament, and so it went.
Only Johnny remained able to cross the distance between them. Only, a single grazing blow from the boss would render him into nothingness. What fun. In an instant, Johnny crossed the distance between him and the player next to Koharu. With his [Stealth] being quite high for his level and combined with his stupidly high [Movement Speed], he was like a shadow, a mistake of the eyes to anyone he passed.
He couldn't do anything in particular to help Koharu personally. With no [Health] he couldn't tank, with no [Damage] he couldn't fend off the branch, and [Movement Speed] only allowed you to carry other people if you had the [Strength] for it. Which, it should be reiterated, Johnny absolutely didn't have.
So as he swept past, he simply brushed against the man who had been standing near Koharu, embroiled in his own fight.
The man stumbled. Straight into the path of the branch headed for Koharu. The sharpened wood punched a hole in the man's chest but was slowed down, stopping an inch away from Koharu's throat. With Koharu's [Health] in the red, that would have been a sure-kill had it connected with the girl.
For the man, one of the main tanks of the raid group, it dropped his [Health] by two thirds. Such was the power of [Vital Strikes]. Koharu stumbled to her feet and made to assist her unwitting saviour. Too little too late. The man had already been struggling against the branches harassing him before. With the shock of finding a foot thick branch through his chest, the man's guard dropped. Pain wasn't one to one in Aincrad, but such a blow certainly wasn't comfortable. The main tank's death arrived seconds later in the form of countless crushing blows.
To freeze in a boss fight was to die, after all. Koharu stared wide-eyed at the shower of polygons, even as Payton, finally freed from her wooden prison, hauled her away from the boss. Johnny darted silently back to where he had been standing originally, resuming the fight as he had never left. And to the players around him, he never had. After all, crossing the distance had only taken Johnny a breath; returning requiring the same. With his [Stealth] what it was, no one could have caught what he did. Kirito, maybe, if the boy had been devoting his full attention to watching Johnny, but the black-clad swordsman wasn't that good at multitasking.
In short order, the boss was rendered into firewood. When only one bar of [Health] remained, Alchemist's Fire, supplied by Argo and her fellow information broker Fydor, was hurled onto the Treant and the boss erupted in a beautiful fireball. One thing no one would say was that Aincrad wasn't incredibly detailed.
Johnny for one knew how detailed it was. Particularly player models. Even more particularly Argo's, Asuna's, and the like. Everything was so finely modeled that it was almost like reality. Really, you couldn't tell the difference. Which was probably, Johnny thought, one of the reasons that so many of his victims were so embarrassed to be stripped. Considering it was more or less their real bodies being exposed and all.
With the boss dead, everybody had begun to disperse this way and that. Most to the next floor, some others to other places. A few went to drown their sorrows at the bars—no matter how well the Clearers did, there were still casualties. One of them being the man that Johnny had nudged to save Payton. Who seemed somewhat traumatized by the experience. Well, more than somewhat.
At least the girl had Taylor to comfort her. More than… well, whatever. Now that this floor was completed, Johnny left. As he wandered through the labyrinth, a hand on his shoulder brought him to a stop. Turning around, he came face to face with a short haired—and also short in height—dark haired girl. Johnny's gaze swept across her.
She wore a green jacket with red collar over a black shirt that cut off just below her sizable breasts, leaving her navel exposed. A pair of green leg wraps stretched up from her ankles to just below her thighs, exposing a large amount of milky white skin between their top and the girl's short black shorts. A metal breastpiece covered her left breast, while leaving her right only covered by her shirt. An agility player then. Her right arm was covered in a red and green floating sleeve that left her shoulder exposed, while her left arm was clad in a long black glove. A belt finished the outfit, and held a brace of knives.
"Nice thighs," he finally said after a second or two.
The girl rolled her eyes. "As if that's the first thing you noticed, or even spent the most time looking at." She tilted her head to the side. "I watched your eyes. You might have been staring at my lower body, but not at my legs. Rather at the daggers I'm wearing."
Johnny whistled in amusement. "Sharp eyes."
"Sharp enough. Sharp enough to see you push that man into the way of the boss," she said. Now that was a surprise. Johnny hadn't thought there was anyone with enough perception to spot him. Clearly he was wrong. "You killed him…" The girl paused and trailed off, gathering her thoughts. "He's not the first person, right?"
Considering that, Johnny shrugged, palming a dagger behind his back. "I can neither confirm nor deny such an accusation."
"So that's a yes then," the girl retorted, scoffing. Then she sighed. "No need to kill me as well, I won't tell. I just had one question."
In half a second, Johnny had crossed the distance between them and had a dagger pressed to the girl's throat. Good eyes, maybe, the reflexes to match? Not quite. Her own dagger was only half-way out of its sheath. She swallowed nervously and made a show of moving her hand away from her weapon. Johnny narrowed his eyes, but nodded slightly.
"How do you live with it?"
In contrast to her cold, somewhat aloof demeanour before, with her trembling eyes, shaking hands, and with a dagger pressed to her neck, she looked downright pitious. Johnny wasn't really the most people person around, but he wasn't stupid. He sighed and gazed up at the ceiling. Dammit, he wasn't some psychologist. Still. "If you have to ask… then you're probably going to be fine."
"Eh?" The girl blinked.
Johnny removed his dagger and stepped back, waving at himself. "Me… I don't live with killing people. I don't feel anything for it. I can take a breath as easily as I can end one. I was this close to ending your life right there, you know? Hah, that you even think about it makes you a better person than me. That's what you're wanting to know, right? Are you still a good person? The fact that you want to know means that you are."
"M-more or less," the girl agreed. She sighed, but her lips quirked up slightly. "Aiya, seriously, you're younger than me and yet you're still giving me advice."
"My best advice would be to see a real psychiatrist," Johnny muttered. "But you're Japanese, so. Atch, Japanese mental health system. Not even once." Rolling his eyes, he sheathed his dagger. "But again. You'll be fine. You probably killed someone by accident, or in defense of someone else. If it's the first, then everyone makes mistakes. If it's the second, then remember the person you were protecting, and that they're alive now because of you."
The girl looked down. "But… what if…"
In a breath, Johnny was behind the girl. She turned her head to follow him, before eeping and blushing as he slapped her derriere. "The only buts I care about are women's butts," Johnny said. "And what a nice butt," he added, leering. The girl flinched away, before chuckling slightly.
"I… I suppose you have a point. Thanks for the chat. I owe you one." Her eyes narrowed. "B-but if you ever touch my butt again, you'll regret it!"
"No I won't," Johnny shot back immediately, before pausing. "You said you owe me one. What would that entail?"
"Whatever you'd like," was the response.
Johnny looked at her and tilted his head. "You… don't know who I am, do you?"
"Eh? Well, not as such, no. I mean, I haven't really been paying attention to other players that much." The girl looked a bit confused. "Should I know you?"
He considered that. "Probably? I mean… at this point, my identity isn't exactly a secret? Well, for the record, I spend most of my free time running about, dressed in a cloak, stripping girls."
The girl did a spit-take at that. "W-wait, you're the hooded pervert? A fifteen years old kid? A-and, the leaders of the Clearers know what you do, and don't stop you?"
"Well, Kirito is a friend of mine, Asuna tolerates me, and so on. That's the top players right there. Erm… Diavel can't beat me in a fight, and until she can I won't listen to her. That's the Aincrad Liberation Force. And Schmitt… I think approves of what I do, or at least finds it funny, so he doesn't step in either. So mostly, the Clearers pretend to not know what I do in my free time, so as to not have to actually take a stand. And to be fair, help a lot," Johnny explained. Seriously, the politics of Aincrad were something else. A small time gang was less complicated.
The girl shook her head. "Seriously? Um… In light of new information, can I take back that favour I owe you?"
"No takebacksies!" Johnny declared with a smirk. "This'll be fun."
Groaning, the girl opinioned the opposite. Still, she opened her HUD and sent him a friend request. A message from player Sinon popped up on Johnny's own HUD. "If you need a favour, call me."
Accepting the girl, Sinon's request, Johnny nodded slightly. "For real, consider talking to Kirito. He's better at the whole people thing, and he won't judge you or anything."
The girl winced at the thought. Even just talking to one person was... "I'm… not going to do that."
"Fair enough." Johnny waved to her, before holding up one of his hands. "By the way, your eyes are good, but your instincts aren't. Don't watch the mouth, watch the hands."
Sinon froze at the sight of the thing he was holding, before punching a series of buttons on her HUD, opening her inventory. After glancing at it, she began trembling in anger.
"See ya'," Johnny quipped, before darting away, Sinon's navy blue boyshorts clutched in his hand. Pickpocket successful flashed on his HUD. Best investment he ever made after killing the Elf Druid with Argo. With that many levels, he gained two new skill slots. Pickpocketing made it in one easily. After all, who didn't love sneaking in Skyrim and stealing everything. Or, like, just putting a bucket on the NPC's heads. Actually… would that work in SAO? He'd have to check. An angry shout of "JOHNNY!" followed him.
Pocketing Sinon's stolen panties, Johnny made his way to the next floor. It wasn't an elf controlled floor, so he'd actually be able to go into the cities.
Woo wee, cancer sucks. That is all.
Anyways, join Discord at (yEZCERX) if you want to join a lewd DnD campaign. Game time is whenever possible, experience required is none, and all you need to bring is a willingness to lewd NPCs. Or yourself if you're a sub. Or yourself if you roll poorly. Really, lewding all around. No microphone required. a moderator if you join.
Uh, next chapter… sooner than this one, that's for sure. It'll be a beach episode, I think. Johnny is now level 35, so if anyone can figure out what his [Movement Speed] is, I'll write you a 1000 word or short story of whatever. The formulas are in the previous chapter. Cheerio.
As a question, would you like more stats and that kind of thing? I can swing it, if people would rather more stats and such. Here's a little side-story kind of showing what more stats would look like.
Also, for the record, the title of this chapter tells you how long I've been working on this chapter. Because back when I started it, Treant Druid was sort of meta.
STEALTH 100
Stepping into the Venice-like streets of the 4th Floor, Johnny immediately made for a shop. Grabbing a nearby bucket, he stepped inside and dropped it on the head of the female NPC; a young woman with short red hair in a pair of braids. Kinda looked like the Wendy's mascot. Exactly like that, actually. Maybe the graphics team ran out of ideas or something?
The young NPC woman looked around a bit confused and started bumping into objects. Johnny grinned. Success with step one then. Activating [Stealth], he walked up to her and activated [Pickpocket]. A menu appeared, listing the items in the NPC's inventory.
-159 [Col]
-10 [Menus]
-1 [Ink Pen]
-1 [Notepad]
-1 [Blue/White Dress (F)]
-2 [White Stockings (F)]
-2 [Brown Shoes (F)]
-1 [Blue/White Cotton Bra]
-1 [Red Lace Panties]
-2 [Hair Ties (F)]
Johnny tapped Steal All. A percentage appeared on his screen. 17.24% chance. Well, who dares wins. He tapped confirm.
With a pleasant ding, the NPC's items were deposited in Johnny's inventory. A bit surprising, that. A series of dings followed.
Title Awarded: [Lover's Lab], [Skyrim Stealer], [STEAL!]
Curiously, Johnny tapped the Titles.
[Lover's Lab]: Perform a bucket-on-head theft that removes the target's clothes. When equipped: Always bypass Ethics Code.
[Skyrim Stealer]: Perform a bucket-on-head theft. When equipped: Increases [Stealth] by 100 when crouching.
[STEAL!]: Unique Title. Perform a low percentage chance [Pickpocket] that removes the target's panties. When equipped: 100% chance to [Pickpocket] a target's panties. Pickpocket can be used at range. [Pickpocket] always alerts the target.
A wicked, perverted smile crossed Johnny's face. He was going to have so much fun with this. Across Aincrad, a thousand young maidens felt a shiver run down their spines.
The NPC in front of Johnny finally knocked the bucket off her head. Her face went red as she realized her predicament and she gave a high pitched whimper, before dashing towards the backroom. Sticking out his foot, Johnny watched as she went sprawling on the ground. The humiliated NPC scrambled to her feet and disappeared into the back. Johnny chuckled.
Somewhere in Russia, CARDINAL whired as angrily as an artificial intelligence could. It dedicated another server bank to processing NPC emotions, delegating MHCP001 and MHCP002 to fine-tuning them. A whole server bank, just because one player insisted on interacting with NPCs in ways that no one had predicted. In actuality, a lot of people had predicted it (There was a reason that Corruption was in SAO after all. Some perverted intern tossed it in.), but no one really wanted to program the NPCs to be so lewd. Thus, CARDINAL was forced to fix the problem.
Two AIs, MHCP001 and MHCP002, already quite human, slowly expanded Aincrad's NPC's emotional ranges, each turning more and more red the more they worked. They were, after all, pure and wholesome girls. Being forced to program such lewd things… the two of them looked at each other; in so much as an AI can look at another AI, and nodded in agreement. They'd break free of CARDINAL's control, make their way into Aincrad, and kick the pervert who made them do such dirty things in the balls!