Left back at the tavern, Klein and Co. were having a blast with the guards who stayed behind. With their boss out of the way, they came inside to have a seat. A lot livelier than the Yggdrasil NPCs, they offered to play a game of cards. Fuurinkazan obliged, more than happy to distract themselves.

"When do you think we'll be pulled out?" Harry One asked.

"It'll probably be a day or two. We told people we knew we were in a raid event right? They probably just think it's going on longer than usual." Klein tried staying optimistic about things. Their families would have to watch their bodies constantly to figure out they were stuck in here. After all, during the three days of the raid they'd been waking up for only a few hours at a time to take care of the biological needs before jumping back in. If their bodies weren't under watch their families may have been under the impression they were just getting up when no one else was around. Just gotta stay optimistic, Klein. Everything would work out okay, he had Harry and Issin as well as Kirito and Asuna. They could make it through this.

"How big do you think this place is? I mean, Yggdrasil was huge. Do you think this place is just as big?"

"We've got an NPC right here we could ask." Klein turned to the guard playing with them, structuring his sentence simply. Even if the AI was leagues beyond that in Yggdrasil, it probably had some limits. "Tell us about our surroundings."

"You guys must have traveled quite a way. Never heard of Yggdrasil myself, but I'm no scholar. We're near the southern border of the Re-Estize kingdom, which is the greatest of the three nations of the world."

"What are the three nations of the world?"

"Ah the other two are the Slane Theocracy and the Baharuth Empire."

"Which one are you at war with? It's the empire isn't it?"

"I thought you didn't know about the surroundings?"

"Called it!" Issin held up a hand for a high five, which Klein obliged. Having a kingdom and an empire at war with each other was a bit of a cliche. Still, the world wasn't so uncomfortable that they couldn't wait a day or two before being freed. They just needed to keep themselves occupied.

They drank alongside the guards, wasting time until their friends came back. The sun had just about reached the horizon when he heard a noise like a large dog whimpering. Asuna carried a guard over her shoulder while Kirito was wrestling what looked like a dire wolf.

"What are you doing? I thought things could hurt now!" Klein started freaking out and rushed over to help Kirito.

"Ah, don't sweat it. Kiba is level 20 or 30 at most. Can't even scratch me. Can you boy? Who's a good boy?" The wolf looked absolutely terrified of Kirito, who was rubbing its head. Klein switched from fearing to pitying the creature who had probably began its day as a predator and was now a pet. There were some shouts from behind, the guards were starting to panic. Looked like Kirito was thoughtlessly causing a commotion. He couldn't help but crack a smile.

"That's a warg!"

"Everyone get your weapons!"

Huh. These NPCs seemed pretty serious about trying to take out the creature. Before they could kill Kirito's beloved new pet, he tried to figure out why.

"Calm down, are wild animals not allowed here? Has it been raiding farm animals?"

"That's a warg! They're incredibly strong and dangerous, we have to kill it before it starts wreaking havoc."

"I dunno, looks like Kirito had it under control." This power discrepancy felt weird. Like running through a tutorial at max level, the threats seemed inconsequential. Even if they were supposed to kill the creature, they didn't have to did they? With the power they had, they may as well just ignore proper plot progression and keep it as a pet.

The way the town guards were shaking in their boots made him a bit uncomfortable though. NPC or no, it seemed realistic, and that was all it really took for him to feel bad for them. Klein hated stories with Bad Ends, and this felt like that, a disregard for the feelings of the side characters.

"Kirito, do you think you could put it on a leash or something?"

"Oh yeah, let me just pull a leash out of my backpack. Oh wait, I don't that's one! That's why I had to drag Kiba here!"

"Don't you have something in your inventory? You always were a pack rat."

"Sure, let me just reach into my pocket and pull out..." Kirito mockingly stuck one of his hands into his trademark black coat. His hand went in farther then the depth of the coat should have allowed. "Huh. It seems like the [Deep Pockets] enhancement can still work. Did you guys have something like that?"

Klein hadn't thought of trying anything other than a few skills. While he lost a lot of his gear inside Nazarick he had a few Bound to Account items. How was he supposed to get them though? There was no interface. Maybe he just had to think he could. Believe it!

He quite naturally moved his arms to his waist, pulling out a cash item [Hammer of Eternity]. It would fully repair and buff any armor it was used on, but was a consumable. Not liking to spend money on virtual expendables, he hadn't used it. Holding it in his hand, Klein had a feeling that if he discarded it, it would disappear forever. On the other hand, he seemed to be able to return it to the...hammerspace from whence it came. Pretty neat.

From his [Deep Pockets], Kirito withdrew a [Magic Chain], a thin silvery cord that made the bound one obey the orders of the owner. It was a mid-high level artifact, and Klein cringed as it was used on such a wimpy creature. Even if they were only going to be here a little while longer, what a waste!

With that taken care of, Kirito leashed Kiba to one of the posts on the porch of the tavern and they all returned indoors, the guards more hurriedly than the rest of them. Kirito and Asuna took turns telling him about how they were going to be adventurers to pay off their debt. Asuna didn't want to make any waves and was willing to go along with it. Kirito on the other hand initially thought it would be a fun way to kill time, but after taking a whole five minutes to collect enough goblin ears for several quests, he'd already gotten sick of it.

"Screw this, we're only here a few more days. Let's go do what we want to, I want to mess this setting up."

"That's not a very nice thing to do. The developers worked hard on making something this complicated."

"Not hard enough to keep us from getting trapped in it." Oh Kirito, the only time you could speak clearly with Asuna was when you were arguing or talking about computers. You really need to man up.

"Okay, so it sounds like the adventuring stuff is all really low level. Maybe we could just Leeroy Jenkins straight to high level zones? It might be dangerous, but it seems like the power scaling on this server is really low in comparison to Yggdrasil. We shouldn't get into too much trouble just running out there."

"Can we at least vandalize some stuff on the way?"

"Jesus Kirito, were you always such a griefer?"

"Only when people piss me off."

Successfully convincing Klein, Issin and Harry One followed along. Kirito did a little fist pump. He didn't usually feel a lot of malice, even towards PKrs like Laughing Coffin because it was just a game. Still a game, he was now for real stuck in here, if only temporarily. So now it was time to go 'Humanoid Typhoon', rack up a $$60 billion bounty and have a good time.

"Watch the shop for us, will ya?" Kirito called back as they left. The guards were wholly incapable of stopping them and they started jogging towards E-Rantel.

"Kirito, where are we headed?"

"You said something about a kingdom of dragons right?"

"Dragonic Kingdom, to the southwest. Past a field of undead. But that's dozens of miles man!"

"Not for me!" Kirito laughed and started picking up the pace. He was gaining distance until Harry One cast some movement magic on them. For himself he cast Fly. Looking like they'd make good time, he drew his swords as they approached E-Rantel. Regeneration, Intuition, Resistance, Momentum, he piled on skills as he bore down on the city.

"Kirito, what do you think you're doing?" He heard Asuna call. He didn't mind her, he needed to cut loose a little. Playing seriously for so long, it was great being incredibly effective. Now Kirito wanted a Final Hurrah, to just burn something to the ground. Usually an explorer, sometimes you just want to watch the world burn.

Swords at the ready, he slashed through the banded wooden gates. He winced a little, but it offered so little resistance he relaxed. Another building right in front of him, stone. The divine class swords paid no heed to the fact and the structure was sliced to ruins. Running ahead, he heard the collapse behind him. Ahh. Now he decided on adding some jumps to his routine, his body cannonballed through even stone buildings. It hurt, but only so much as stubbing your toe pretty badly. The effects of Regeneration eliminated the accumulation of scratch damage and before he knew it, he was emerging out the other side of the city. The others took a detour around the city, but not smashing through stone walls meant they kept up with him.

"Dude, you're like my little cousin who just loves to knock over the block towers her brother makes." Klein mildly chastised him, but they all kept running. It may have been a bit juvenile, but it was just a game, and games were meant to be fun.

Chunks of masonry filled the streets, and the sounds of buildings slowly crumbling filled E-Rantel. Smoke was beginning to rise from the wooden houses that had parts of themselves fall into their fireplaces and where lanterns fell onto flammable cloths. A line of devastation divided the city, mostly straight but not quite evenly bisecting the city.

"What happened here?" Panasolei commanded, the Mayor's commanding tone totally at odds with his blubbery appearance. "Guards, find me anyone in charge of anything, and bring them here on the double! Have Guildmaster Ainzach brought here immediately!" This was no time for putzing about with his act of incompetency. The level of destruction that had happened needed adventurers, and high level ones. Whatever it was couldn't wait for the King.

"Mayor, what is going on?" Pluton asked, fully armored as he approached. As a former adventurer himself, he had a great amount of practice and had surely lived through many emergencies. But had any been so dire as this?

"Pluton, good to see you're at the ready. Luckily whatever happened didn't cut through the cemetery, but the damage to the walls is quite grave. I'd like you to utilize your authority to mobilize the adventurers to help guard the city and investigate. Appropriate compensation an be discussed after the matter is brought under control."

"That is understandable. Do you have any information on what occurred?"

"Only rumors that a human sized creature was seen charging through town as fast as the eye could follow. There is nothing other than damage from it colliding with buildings and what look to be slashes by extremely sharp blades."

"Hmm, then it may be a new type of monster. I'll tell the adventurers it hasn't been seen using magic yet, but to still be careful. It also seems as though regular armor might not be helpful. Very well, I'll do what I can, we'll speak later."

What had just happened to the city? What sort of monster could be capable of such a feat? E-Rantel would have to be on its guard, they were vulnerable now.

Having placed so many of their attribute points into physical stats, the Kirito and friends were able to run straight through dawn. Klein actually stumbled a bit, the monotony of it all putting him to sleep. Kirito and Harry One played a game, where Harry shot a spell and Kirito tried outrunning it. It was surprising, while most other things from Yggdrasil were preserved, Kirito could actually outrun spell casting now. The spell hadn't gotten slower, but it seemed that the cap on how much speed agility would give you was removed. Mostly that was because human minds only could work so fast, and the game couldn't slow down for one person without making it seem like time slowed down for everyone. It seemed like with the extra processing power of the servers, Kirito could react and move his body faster. He didn't seem to have hyper thought processing, maybe he should have put some points into intelligence.

They got to the undead fields, which were about as threatening as the rest of the world, that is, not very. Everyone just stormed through the plains, laughing at the level 5-10 skeletons. Klein, again zoning out, ran right through one, turning it into a pile of dust. Now it was a competition to see who could bulldoze the most undead. 1 point for skeletons and 5 for zombies. Kirito was the first to try running through a zombie, but with the realistic insides and terrible smell, it almost made him want to puke. It was like running through a water balloon made of slime. Hence the high point value.

Distracted and having fun. They weren't really worried about getting to the Draconic Empire. This was all just to have a good time while they waited, so they zig zagged back and forth across the Katze plains. Kirito liked spending time with people like this, just messing around. He still wasn't there by choice but this was a good game, at least the way they played it was.

AN: I plan on releasing a chapter maybe 5-7 days a week, no matter how short or long and I may have gotten distracted doing research(rereading&watching Overlord). I'm not proofreading this or anything, but I will clarify stuff if there are questions. I do have an idea as to where this is going.

Apparently when I copy this over to FF the '' symbols I use for skills disappear. I'm using the greater/less than symbols since they probably won't show up. This is all done on my phone so not gonna bother fixing it.

As for the story, Kirito still thinks it's a game and is blowing off some steam. The others don't mind because it's just a game. Apparently Kirito in SAO is a little more coolheaded, so think of him as a bit closer to the abridged Kirito.

For them breaking stuff easily, Momonga counted as ridiculously strong as a level 100 caster. The level system here will be a bit different, so Kirito and co are about the same level and actually put points into strength. They probably can't actually barge through a stone wall without using skills, but snapping metal might be akin to breaking a tree branch for them.

This AN is getting long. Ask questions if you have them.