Sword VIII: Friends

"Thanks, be sure you come back if you ever need another upgrade," Liz said with a pleasant smile as her latest customer headed off, carry a two handed spear with a jagged point over her shoulder. It was one of her riskier upgrades to complete; she had only a 15% chance to succeed and if she failed, any materials used in the attempt would be lost. Lucky for her, she had add a few bonus material to increase her chances slightly and that seemed to do the trick perfectly, turning into a high stat boost return along with amazing experience for her smithing skill. The customer had seemed plenty happy as well and that could mean she'd get a few recommendations from her previous work.

Liz had moved her small smithing shop up to the Third Floor of Sword Art Online and had positioned her store into the central town of that Floor. Because of its location this made for a lot of potential customers, but also quite a few competitors for the trade. Already many of the other and much larger player owned smith shops had made their way up to this floor and had claimed an early establishments to properly sell their wares while she was left setting a corner shop out on her tarp like she usually did. She tried not to let the idea bother her, but if she didn't get something to cover her shop soon she'd lose out on a lot of business any days there were rain.

"So how's business?" That questioned asked by a rather familiar voice made Liz smile as she turned to see her guild leader standing behind her with his arms crossed and a familiar nonchalant look on his face.

"Same old, same old, I'm still working out in the elements but at least people are sure to notice me out here," Liz told him before point to her shop sign. "I updated this though."

The Final Rebellion Smith Shop read the sign which had the guild's seal drawn next to it. No one save for him knew this, but the sigil that Ragna had chosen for his guild to be represented by was his own personal Armagus sigil, colored red with a black outline of varying thickness.

"What, no more Lisbeth's Streetside Smith Shop? You seemed awfully proud of that name back when I was visiting you on floor one." Ragna noted.

"Well, that's before I decided to go and join a guild so I gotta let everyone know it's a team effort," she told him with a smile before looking over her shop. "It's getting close to lunch, so you mind doing me a favor and watching the shop while I go grab us something to eat?"

"Us? As in plural? As in you're treating me to lunch?" Ragna asked while Liz gave him as bright a smile as she could manage. Her expression turned to be contagious as even Ragna had to give off a well meaning smirk. "Heh heh, I must be dreaming."

"Yeah, well let anyone lay a finger on my stuff and I'll make this into a nightmare," she promised as she ran off leaving Ragna to watch over her shop.

"I come here for an upgrade and she leaves me with house sitting? What's up with that?" the Grim Reaper thought to himself with a smirk as he crossed his arms to wait for the Blacksmith to return, only to notice a girl heading towards him. She had long orange hair, fair skin, and golden eyes He knew he hadn't seen her before, but something about her outfit made him think he should know her from somewhere… right before he noticed his guild symbol right beside her name. "Asuna?"

"Ragna?" she asked in turn as she took a look at her guild leader with a sense of surprise. "I… wasn't expecting to see you here."

"Yeah, that tone of yours told me as much," he muttered. "So… that's what you look like under that hood of yours." He chuckled. "I was starting to think I'd have a second Argo in my guild."

"It… it's not like that… I've just decided to stop wearing it recently," she tried to tell him while all he did was give a small shrug. "So where's Liz then?"

"She was here a moment ago, but she left me to watch her shop while she grabbed us both lunch," Ragna informed before smirking. "You eat yet?"

"I haven't yet…" she told him, leaving Ragna to type out a message to his blacksmith. "You don't have to make her treat…"

"With all of the times everyone's made me treat for them at once? This is letting her off easy," Ragna informed before sending off the message. "So what have you been up to since I last saw you?"

"I've been traveling around the second and third floors in a group unlike someone I know," she told Ragna who merely shrugged. "In fact until just a bit ago I was working to clear one of the dungeons on this floor with Yuuki and Leafa. We managed to make it to the end, but there wasn't any boss there for us to fight. Must have already been beaten today."

"I've hit the same problem a few times myself," the Grim Reaper informed her thinking back to yesterday. "So… has Leafa been doing okay?"

"She has, in fact she's seemed much more optimistic ever since we managed to clear Floor One… I honestly think she's trying to come up with an idea to make it up to you."

"She doesn't need to do that, but it's still nice to hear that she's doing well," Ragna said, a small smile forming on his lips. "You're here for an upgrade too then?"

"Yep, just did some material farming while I was out to get everything I need to upgrade my rapier," Asuna told him. "Argo was even kind enough to send information my way for a few other dungeons that she saw on this floor."

"Kind enough… meaning you didn't have to bribe it out of her with food?" Ragna asked, earning only a confused look from Asuna. "Guess that makes me special then, yare yare daze…"

"Does everyone keep demanding food from you then?" Asuna had to ask as she thought to their current situation. "But I thought that you just said that Liz was heading out to grab lunch for both of you."

"This is a RARE occasion, like… I half expected to wake up from a dream rare." Asuna didn't get the current situation, but the more she thought back to it the more she remembered Ragna complaining about the cost of food back on Floor One. "This game isn't the first place that I've been treated like a meal ticket either, far from it in fact…"

"Must have cost you a fair amount of Yen," Asuna said, the currency reminding Ragna that this was still a different world and he'd have to watch what he'd say if he didn't want to expose himself.

"Yen and more," he told her with a sigh, remembering the dine-and-dash he'd had to participate in courtesy of Tao and his high bounty.

"I'm back with the food and then some!" came Liz's voice as she returned to her shop with a three leather sacks in her hands, two of which she handed to Ragna and Asuna.

"That was quick," her guild leader noted as he opened the sack revealing a small pot giving off steam along with a German-style beer stein with a metal lid to keep its contents from spilling. "What did you get anyways?"

"For food I got three order of bell peppers and beef which had been ordered by a group that left early and for drinks I got us all beer to try."

"B-Beer!?" Asuna noted with concern. "I-I mean with all of the wheat fields on this floor it makes sense… B-But we're under the drinking age! Sure Ragna's probably fine, but the two of us-"

"It's fine, this is a game and I doubt we'd get drunk on this digital stuff no matter how hard we tried!" Liz told them all with a smile at the excitement of trying a new drink… Ragna decided to ignore said comment on his age.

'Since I'm actually here I guess that means I might be able to get drunk if it wasn't for...' Ragna thought as he looked at his arm and thought of the rapid healing it gave him that would prevent intoxication, not that he could really complain. Opening the small meal pot, he looked inside at the contents and grabbed his chopsticks to begin eating before pausing. "...Uh, listen Liz."

"What is it?" his blacksmith asked, stopping her from taking a long first sip from her stein.

"You said Bell Peppers and Beef," Ragna said to her as he stared down at the dish with disappointment in his eyes. "There's no Beef in here…"

"There's not?" Liz asked as opened her own dish and looked inside to find a similar meal. "Oh… You're right, there isn't."

"So you wouldn't really call this Bell Peppers and Beef now would you?" Ragna muttered, though he did use his chopsticks and get a few slices of peppers in his mouth, which weren't that bad he had to admit.

"Maybe they screwed up and order the vegetarian option and left so they wouldn't be stuck with the bill?" Liz suggested. "Well at least we have the beer to try right?" Neither Ragna nor Asuna said anything as Liz began to take a long swig of her drink, right before her eyes grew comically big and she began coughing on it.

"Not what you were expecting, was it?" her guild leader said with a sigh as he looked at his own beer stein.

"S-sooo b-bitter," Liz burst out, attracting a lot of attention for passers-by and causing Asuna to cringe at the display. "And my throat is burning! Why do people drink stuff like this!?"

"'Cause it gets addictive the more you try it," Ragna told her before sending the item to his inventory to save for Klein if the samurai wanted it.

"Ugh… You know what? Forget beer! Get me some Mikkusuore to drink any day!" the blacksmith declared leaving her guild leader to chuckle. "What's so funny!?"

"You'd really drink Mikkusuore with all of that cream and sugar? What are you, six?" he teased with a wolfish smirk.

"Oh yeah? And what would you drink?" she demanded with a scowl.

"Water mostly, whatever keeps me hydrated… Maybe some Oolong tea if I'm in a good enough mood." This earned him a rather powerful eye roll from Lizbeth. "Oh yeah? What's your problem?"

"All you want to drink is water and Oolong tea? What are you, fourty?" she asked in turn as a snarky come back to Ragna's earlier teasing. The Reaper only shakes his head before continuing to eat his beefless bell peppers special.

"You two are really good friends, aren't you?" Asuna asks the two of them, leaving Ragna to tilt his head to the side in a bit of surprise. "I mean… despite your bickering you both seem to get along pretty well… and Liz did say that you saved her shop."

"...Guess we are," the Grim Reaper admitted, just a touch hesitantly.

"Careful there Ragna; if you keep acting that friendly to me people are going to get the wrong idea about us," Liz told him sarcastically as she took another clump of peppers to her mouth.

"Wrong idea?" their rapier user asked before coming to the obvious conclusion and stuttering. "Y-You mean-?" Ragna could have just sighed at the annoyance and left it there… but then what fun would that be?

"...Well maybe if I didn't have to keep buying you food, no one would think I'm your damn boyfriend."

Liz nearly choked on her food at the sudden usage of the word boyfriend. She was fine after a moment of painfully coughing (which felt even worse now after it had mixed with the beer), but Ragna knew the red on her face afterwards wasn't all for a lack of air. Asuna herself had already gotten a touch of pink on her face at Lisbeth's comments, but her surprise that Ragna had brought the idea up even as a joke turned it a shade or two deeper.

"...You jerk," Liz told the Reaper with an absolutely scathing glare. Ragna laughs as he decides to enjoy the moment, even whilst knowing he's going to have hell to pay later. Asuna wisely stays quiet here while making a mental note that maybe Ragna doesn't have to pay for every meal.

Author's Note

NEW DEAL: THE MORE REVIEWS I GET, THE SOONER I PUT OUT CHAPTERS!

Hey guys! So… much shorter chapter this week, but there's a good reason for that. If you pay attention to my most viewed (and most requested) story A Reaper's Awakening, you'll know that I've got a surge of updates for that fic planned starting on June 29th. I'm doing… okay, but I've got some stuff to finish off if I'm going to make it. If that wasn't reason enough for a short chapter I've had a crazy week with another (short) something I put out on Fanfiction for Cross Tag Battle and because of a birth in my family. Yeah, I've got a new baby cousin. Boy number 6 of my generation in fact... with no girls… Interesting turn of events.

Anyways, let's take care of the Review responses and post this thing.

ENDDRAGON369: Possibly, I guess that's true.

lightkurinhuruname: Your name takes me so long to spell out correctly… well enjoy your fix I guess.

Wlyman2009: Yay, new really short chapter.

JOK3R Of Monday: Well here's some new character interaction for you.

Mad King Ben: Part 2 has had a slower start than part one thus far, but there's a bit more to plan out than a single floor.

ZilverX The Writer Triplet: Brilliant, eh?

Hellifrit: ...I shall neither confirm nor deny.

Medblare: Well compared to some 'heroes' from his world like Jin and Rachel, he's a damn Saint.

Touhoufanatic: It's mostly up to me, my crazy mind, and what looks good at the time of writing… that's my process in a nutshell.

Guest: I'll plan on involving Shino/Sinon, but I'm just looking for a good place to introduce new characters. Might've included her here if the chapter wasn't so short.

TheEmeraldMage: Thanks for the lengthy review. I'll be working around with Yui, but at the same time I'm going to have her inclusion play a major role in the story while trying to close as many plot holes as I can.

PersonaQeminod1: Not sure if this qualifies as fluff… but I hope that you enjoy nonetheless.

TheUnplanner: Am I detecting someone that is completely over the whole 'innocent and clueless protagonist' trope? ...This is why I write for Ragna and not Kirito.

Zaralann: We've already talked via PM, but you're entitled to your opinion on the matter.

Guest (2): It's already differed quite a bit already, even classic scenes like the showdown with Ilfang had some major changes to it.

Sonicdude8: Thanks for the info that I need to consider. While I do think that getting used to that game MAY have speeded up the whole learning process, my concerns mainly lie with A) they now have less players and B) there should be a decent difficulty curve in the game to keep the players invested. Just a thought I had, but that info on quests giving boss details as a reward is something I'll have to keep in mind. Again, thanks.

Till next time! Ciao!