So, it's been about a month. I apologize for taking so long but keep in mind that my writing stamina is not very high and is being split between multiple stories.

Anyway, we move from the first level and on to the next. The Emerald Forest is a place filled with big-ass trees and little sun-light. Expect a lot of Grimm tonight, though midnight approaches slowly.

Enjoy if you can - if you can't, I'm sorry.

REMNANT ONLINE

"Ruby, what are you doing!?"

"Yang?"

"Get away from that! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is!?"

"I'm sorry! I just-"

Rose slowly opened her eyes and was once again met by an unfamiliar ceiling. It was December 24th, as her menu was kind enough to inform her. It's been nearly seven weeks since they were trapped in the game - and four weeks since the tragic death of Crocea Mors. Rose closed her eyes once more. She still couldn't get over it.

With a heavy sigh, she got out of bed and began scrolling her inventory. With all her gear equipped, she exited her room and headed down stairs. No use lying in bed any longer. It was already three in the afternoon. She had to do something in between sleep and leveling.

Since that day a month ago, Rose had been going on solo grind sessions the forest late at night. After a while, fighting the Grimm became as easy as fighting any other mob. They were still just mindless AIs after all. With enough battles, she could interpret their attack animations and counter them, effectively rendering their adaptive AI little more than a nuisance. She could grind them for hours now without needing to run back into the city safe zones to heal. It was the closest thing she had to a job. At first she was just throwing herself out there to cheer herself up with the thrill of fighting tough enemies. Eventually, the thrill was no longer there and she only fought because it distracted her and was a good way to gain experience. Speaking of which, with the boosted exp all of them gave, she had long passed the soft level cap for the area. She was already level 45.

Down stairs, a couple players were playing cards, with a number of NPCs watching curiously. Rose pulled up a chair and sat at the counter, eyeing the NPCs with curious looks of her own. She then turned to the inn keeper, standing behind the counter, polishing the counter top with a white rag.

"G'morning, Joe. The usual, please," Rose said to the inn keeper. "How's the wife?"

Joe looked up and smiled. "A glass o' brewed [Lightning Root] comin' right up," he said with a hearty laugh. "And about Maryanne. She's doin' mighty fine since you got us that medicine, Rose." He put down a mug and slid it to Rose. "Thank you very much for that again."

The inn keeper, like all NPCs in the game, had a surprisingly smart AI provided that the topic pertains to something in-game. Like, for example, his wife who was part of a quest where the Rose had to figure out what was wrong with her based on a randomized set of symptoms and get her the cure. Rose's version of the quest had her looking for a certain type of herb that cures paralysis and increases movement and attack speed.

"It was nothing," Rose replied kindly. She then took a sip of the brewed [Lightning Root], still amused at how much it tasted like coffee.

There was a pause. "I might be staying here another night," Rose said a few minutes later. "Reserve my room again, please."

"Ah, well, ain't you the loyal customer? I reckon you'll be stayin' til' the next [Gate Dungeon] is cleared, yes?"

Rose nodded. "Yeah."

He looked down. "It'll be mighty saddening not seeing you at the crack o' dawn when you come back from your nightly hunts." He then smiled sadly and shook his head. "But I s'pose that's how things go."

Rose said nothing, though she wanted to.

Joe was an NPC. He was programmed to act the way he did. She was fairly certain he would act the same way towards every patron of the inn if they ever spoke to him longer than the amount of time it took to do the quest or to book a room for the night. That was because the way his mind worked involved gathering a small amount of data about something and a multitude of yes-or-no questions about said data. Like the AI of the enemies, eventually every possible combination of answers to those questions will be given, effectively rendering his adaptive AI meaningless.

And yet he still seemed remarkably human to Rose. It was a major step up from the NPCs of [Signal], the first region of the game. Really, it was hard to think of him as little more than code.

Rose downed the last of her drink and stood. "I'll be going now. The night approaches."

"Goodbye, Rose. 'Til we meet again."

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Gambol Shroud sat atop the roof of the church, highest building in the city. [Emerald Town] the city was called. It was the largest, most heavily populated city in all of the [Emerald Forest], mostly because it was the only city. Its was twice as large as the [Town of Beginnings] back at [Signal], which already rivaled the size of modern cities in real life. But even with all that said, [Emerald City's] size paled in comparison to the forest that surrounded it. From her vantage point, Gambol saw a vast expanse of green, seeming to extend infinitely into the horizon. Even with [Detection], she couldn't see the the point where the forest dropped off into open air.

Gambol mused internally as she gazed into the distance.

According to the flavor text in the lore books, the world of Remnant was broken into one hundred individual chunks of land by some catastrophe long ago. I assume this is basically just the developers hand-waving the lack of seamless geographical cohesion. I understand why they'd do it, though. Creating a single massive world that is interesting but makes sense is really difficult. It would also be taxing on the Nerv-Gear's hardware. Still, the way they chose to go about this is interesting. I am curious to see what lies at the edge of this world. I'm willing to bet it's nothing more than complete darkness like with most games though I hope I'm wrong.

A familiar name appeared at the edge of her detection radius. Exiting from the inn was none other than [Crescent Rose]. Gambol tilted her head curiously before dropping down to the lower rooftops and bounding across them. As she jumped, she sent a PM to Myrtenaster that she'd be with Rose for a while and would be back before midnight. With that, she made her final landing over a small building to the east of where Rose was.

Rose was walking through the crowd with her easily identifiable red and white cloak. Gambol called out to her. "Rose"

Rose looked up and her face lit up. "Gambol!" She jumped onto the roof and gave her a hug.

Gambol squirmed in her hold. "I'm glad to see you missed me," Gambol muttered uncomfortably. "It's been a few days. How've you been?"

Rose let go and grinned at her cheekily. "Oh, you know. Exploring around in the dead of night, just like usual."

"And fighting Grimm all the way," Gambol smirked. "You're already twenty levels over the recommended level for this place, you know? You're more than strong enough. You don't have to keep grinding."

Rose chuckled and shrugged. "Hey, it's a living. Someone has to update the map for Grimm locations, right?" She then stepped off the building and dropped back onto the ground. "Anyway, I gotta deliver this map data to Torchlight and then I'm hitting the Blacksmith. After that, maybe I'll go exploring."

Gambol nodded. "I'll be nearby. Call out if you need anything."

Rose gave a lazy salute. "Will do," she said.

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Stormflower examined the longbow on display. He had opted to forgo the use of his rapier after receiving a pair of knives from a quest - the design and use of which he was familiar with. However, due to their decreased range, he decided it would be best to find another weapon to compensate. Thus, he stood in the town blacksmith's guild hall, browsing their wares. One ware in particular.

The longbow he had his eyes set on was a pricey 8,000 lien. It sat at the front of the shop, and apparently the shop keeper had hundreds more in stock. The demand was not high for long bows, it seemed.

Understandable, though, Stormflower thought. Several points make bows and other such weapons less than ideal. One, they require the [Marksman] skill to even be equipped. Two, they have high strength requirements to use but their damage scales much better with the agility stat. Three, all arrows must be bought at an NPC shop. They do not drop from enemies and cannot be crafted.

Still... He lightly tapped the bow string, watching it vibrate from the slight contact. It is a very elegant weapon. I'd love to have it.

"Hey Ren!" Even before the shout, Stromflower was keenly aware of Magnhild leaning over his shoulder. Upon the girl's exclamation of his name, he stood and faced her.

"Maggy, usernames."

Maggy blinked. "Oh right! I'm sorry!"

Stormflower sighed. "It's okay. What did you want to say?"

"Do you want to buy that?" She grinned. "I've gotten all the things I need and then some!"

Stromflower felt a drop of dread in the pit of his stomach. "Please tell me you didn't use all our money..."

Maggy gave him a look. "Pshh. Of course not. I'm not that stupid. Thought I might have used half."

Stromflower did not pale but he surely would have if the game code allowed him to. "That was 22,000 Lien and you used half of it? What did you even buy?"

"This!" Maggy turned and showed him a bag strapped to her waist. "It lets you hold stuff like potions and throwing knives without needing to go back into the menu to equip them." She brought up the item transfer screen. "I bought one for you as well."

Stormflower was amazed at how remarkably smart her purchase was. "Good call," he said, quietly accepting the bag and equipping it as a belt accessory. It had five items slots and could hold up to ten instances of consumable items in the same slot. Larger items used up more slots.

"This was a good purchase, Maggy," Stormflower said, feeling especially proud. He then looked at the bag in confusion. "But a bag costs only 5k. What happened to the other 1,000?"

Maggy scratched her head. "I sorta used it to buy ten [Fire Bombs]"

Stormflower paused for a bit before just accepting it. Magnhild with explosives would be a terrible combination but he didn't doubt it would also be an incredibly effective one in battle.

"So," Maggy said after a few seconds of silence. "You wanna buy that bow?"

Stormflower nodded, turning his attention back to the bow on display. "The weapon costs 8,000 Lien. A quiver that can hold up to 30 arrows will cost 1,000. The 30 arrows will cost 300. Overall, its a little under 10,000 Lien."

"Let's buy it!" Maggy said almost immediately.

"I'm still weighing my options. I don't have the strength to use it but if I did, no doubt, my agility already makes this weapon more than viable."

"Oh? Then let's buy it and train with Rose for a while. She's always out fighting Grimm, right?"

"Hmm," Stormflower looked at Maggy with reluctance. "I suppose you're right, but..."

"C'moooon. Those things are so cool! I wanna fight them!"

Stromflower scratch his cheek. "Well, when you put it like that, I don't really have much of a choice." He called the NPC vendor and asked to buy the bow, a quiver, and some arrows.

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"Well well well, if it isn't Little Red Riding Hood and the Ice Queen's pet cat?" Torchlight grinned. "I take it you're here to update the map past midnight again?"

"Yeah," Rose said cheerfully.

"Excuse me, 'pet cat'?" Gambol growled.

Torchlight rolled his eyes. "Down, kitty. It was a joke. Don't get your whiskers in tangle or however that saying goes. How's life with the heiress? By the way, tell her advanced happy birthday. And merry Christmas, too, for that matter."

Gambol gave him a questioning glare.

"In the right field of business, the face of Weiss Schnee is known to all," Torchlight said cryptically. "I'm not in that business, mind you, but you can say I know a guy who knows a guy and so on and so forth. Knowing is my job after all." He waved her off. "But enough of that, I don't think you're here for a job, are you?"

Gambol said nothing.

"Then perhaps you should take a step outside. Trust me, kitty cat, we won't take long."

With an obvious amount of reluctance, Gambol stepped out of the room, leaving Torchlight with Rose.

"You were really an asshole to her," Rose noted.

Torchlight smirked. "Par for the course when dealing with me, kiddo. From the moment she spoke, I knew she wouldn't like me regardless of what I say. How much worse would it be if I made her hate me?"

"I don't know. Gambol's pretty scary. I've never really seen her mad, either."

"Haha, says the girl who takes on literal monsters of the night on a daily basis. You're messed up, kid."

Rose chuckled. "Aww, thanks."

"It wasn't a compliment, though I suppose it's admirable that you can take it like one. Now, where were we?"

"Map data."

"Aha, yes." He raised two fingers. "200 lien."

Rose frowned. "It was 300 yesterday!"

"And yesterday was less than the day before. Not a lot of new stuff to add to map every day you come here, Rose. If I were you, I'd go looking for the actual dungeon. It'll help people more since barely anyone goes out of the city after midnight."

Rose remained quiet for a time. "Fine, I'll take 200, you greedy prick."

Torchlight smiled. "Pleasure doing business with you. Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

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Myrtenaster had once again chosen the town clock tower as her designated 'private place'. Namely the highest floor as it granted a view over the city rivaled only by the church to the north east. As before, Wilting Blush stood blocking the stairway, his height, crossed arms, and perpetually angry face making him an imposing obstacle to anyone entering. Myrtenaster stood by the window, watching the sun slowly head towards the horizon. Next to her was Milou Akuou, standing head and shoulders over her.

"So, tomorrow's your birthday," Milou said awkwardly.

Myrtenaster scowled. "Don't remind me."

"I don't understand why you dislike your birthday so much." Milou looked away. "If you wanna talk about it, I'll listen, but I won't pry."

"If you must know, it involves my sister, Winter. I won't say anything else."

"Hmm," Milou looked at her curiously but said nothing. She then turned her gaze back to the town, letting the silence linger for a moment.

After the pause, Milou spoke again. "A good chunk of the forest has been mapped but we still haven't found the [Gate Dungeon] yet."

Myrtenaster felt a twinge of relief from the change of subject but immediately felt stressed again. "This forest is huge," she grumbled. "If it were a little bit smaller, no doubt we'd have found it by now."

"Actually, from my memory of the beta, the entrance changes location every hour. I don't think the forest being smaller will make it any easier to find."

"W-what?" Myrtenaster stammered in surprise. "Then how on earth are we supposed to clear this region?"

Milou chuckled. "There are twelve stone temples in this forest. The entrance will appear inside one of them. We've found a total of zero of them so far. All we need to do is find them, figure out the pattern for the entrance changing, and beat the dungeon. Simple."

"I take it that all this knowledge is from the beta?"

Milou smiled. "Precisely."

Myrtenaster looked away. "You beta-testers have an unfair advantage," she muttered dryly. "But then again, how is that different from real life...?"

And so they stood in silence for a time.

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"Hey, look! It's Rose! ROOOOSE!"

The moment Rose stepped into the guild hall, she was tackled into a hug by none other than Magnhild. She felt a sharp pain in her ribs but thankfully her received no damage since they were inside a town.

"Good to see you, Maggy," Rose said with a pained smile. "How've you been?"

"Oh, you know, the usual. Killing monsters, having fun, and all that jazz. Ren- ah Stormflower bought this bow just now but he can't use it. We wanna join you in your Grimm hunt later tonight and level him up so he can become super strong and use the bow - not that he's not already super strong, I mean if you've seen him in real life, you'd know he's freakin' ripped." Maggy took at a deep breath to recover from that rapid fire of sentences. Then she saw Gambol standing behind Rose. "Oh and Gambol's here. Heeeey, how's it hanging! I haven't seen you in weeks! Though I guess that's a given since you're basically a ninja. I wanna be a ninja too, but the waiting around and hiding isn't really my thing."

"Good afternoon," Gambol said, nodding. "I'm pleased to see you're still as energetic as ever." Maggy grinned in response.

Stormflower stepped forward. "So, what do you say?"

Rose scratched her cheeks and thought for a bit. The Grimm gave double the normal experience for a field mob of that level - it's an amount close to what boss mobs give. Even with the experience scaling based on level difference, an under-leveled player would still receive a hefty amount of experience points from a single fight. Stormflower was certain to level up after a night - more than once by Rose's estimates.

But still, Rose thought. Fighting Grimm? "Well, if you think you can handle it," she said reluctantly. "I guess it's okay."

"Awesome!" Maggy cheered. "We get to smash the wolves!"

Rose suddenly found herself smiling. Maggy's enthusiasm was infectious. "Well, they're not all wolves. There are bears and birds sometimes."

Maggy cheered louder "Even better!"

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Gambol leaped from building to building, unseen by the people in the streets below. She had given Rose and her friends the slip. Rose was sure to notice Gambol's absence when they were alone, but since she had Magnhild to distract her, she didn't even notice Gambol leave. Only one person saw and it was Stormflower. He did not make any comment and merely nodded. He understood that Gambol had her reasons, whatever those reasons were.

From the roof, Gambol dropped down into the alley, barely making any sound as she landed. In the shadowy darkness, she waited for an opening and slipped unnoticed into the crowd of players and NPCs walking through the streets. She was a ghost walking among the masses, completely blended in.

Gambol narrowed her eyes, scanning the crowd. She couldn't risk the use of [Detection] for fear of sensory overload. There he is, she thought. A black bowler-hat with a crow feather in it. I know of only one player who uses that piece of low-level head gear. She scowled. Torchlight.

The man had information that must not be made public. The fact that he would flaunt it so casually straight to her face. It was despicable. She had to make sure he wouldn't expose Myrtenaster's identity. She must keep Myrtenaster safe. It was the very reason she was even in this god forsaken game in the first place. That was her job and dammit she'd do it well.

Right at the second corner, Gambol noted. That path meanders around before reaching a dead end. He must plan on entering one of the buildings lining that street. She scowled as the crowd seemed to thicken as she followed him around the corner. He's gonna give me the slip at this rate. There's no choice. I'll have to risk it...

She activated [Detection]

A sudden rush of sensations came at Gambol all at once. The small changes to the temperature and humidity in her immediate area; the cacophonous whispers of nearly seven hundred people within thirty feet of her; the increased fidelity of every single detail in what she saw before her eyes, with even the texture seams of the player avatars' 3D models clearly noticeable to her - it all threatened to overwhelm her. But she persevered, concentrating on her target.

Torchlight, she thought, face strained with concentration. Sixth building to the left. Enter through a door in the alley.

Having found out what she needed, she quickly deactivated [Detection]. A feeling of relief flowed through her as she slowly recovered. She staggered her way towards her destination.

Using the skill in town is a lot more tiring than using it in the field. It still takes a lot out of me, she thought regrettably. It's getting easier though. All I need is a little practice. Affording herself a small tired smile, she entered at alley and leaned on the wall for a rest.

REMNANT ONLINE

Stormflower could only give an impressed tilt of his head as Rose cleaved a [Hunter Goblin] vertically in half, killing it and three other mobs with a combo of sword techs. Really, it was one of the few times he was ever really impressed by an attack that used [System Assist].

The minimum amount of physical coordination required to use a weapon in the game involved knowing how to swing and how to stab. If the player knew how to do that, all they need do is move their body in the right way to activate a sword technique and let [System Assist] do the rest of the work. It looked and felt sloppy to him.

Granted, some weapons required more finesse in the way they were handled compared to others. For example, a player wielding a Straight Sword could get away with just being able to flail their arms in the right direction for [System Assist] to take effect while a player with a Thrusting Sword like a rapier needed more controlled arm movements - which was why he chose to use those weapons.

However, the Death Scythe weapon-type took the requirement for physical dexterity to it's logical extreme - the motion to activate the [System Assist] involved absurd weapon twirling. It was still very much possible for the average person to use it effectively but that would mean hours upon hours of practice - which Rose must have done.

Stormflower could see the skill in her use of the weapon, chaining sword techs in a ridiculous but all together impressive twenty hit combo. She had very clearly mastered the use of her [Ancient Harvester] in the month following her acquisition of it.

Stormflower wasn't the only one impressed. If anything, Magnhild was even more amazed by what she just saw. "That was AWSOME!" she yelled as she tackle-hugged Rose. "The way we just ran away in circles around those mobs and when you got the crowded together - bam! - you jump in and start wailing on them like this demonic buzz-saw-turbine-fan thing! You mopped the floor with them!"

Rose blushed, scratching her cheek in embarrassment. "Hey, it's nothing. I was really high level so it wasn't that hard." She looked to Stormflower. "So, how was that?"

Stormflower swiped down his menu and checked his stats. He was still Level 31 but he was only a few more fights before leveling up. He still had a number of levels to go before being able to increase his strength to be able to use the bow, but he'd eventually get there.

"No change," he answered,

Rose frowned but nodded. Pushing Magnhild off of her, Rose stood and began walking, gesturing for the two to follow. "We're going maybe half a mile deeper into the forest," she said pointing north. "Then, we just repeat what we did here." When Stormflower and Magnhild nodded in agreement, she turned around and continued forward.

"You know, it's actually pretty effective, trying to level like this," Magnhild said quietly. "I always thought leveling's easier when you're alone because you get all of the experience points instead of half or a third."

Rose chuckled. "Well, that's what most games do. Remnant's sorta different. Fighting enemies with others has no draw back unless you count people competing to get the last hit for rare item drops. Experience isn't split between those who try and fight it - it's calculated per individual player. You get as much exp from fighting mobs along as when you're fighting as a group. The game encourages team work that way."

"But don't mobs get stronger when there's multiple people fighting it?"

"It's percentage based. A hundred players fighting a single mob will make it 100% stronger. Double the health, double the damage, that sort of thing. As long as there aren't too many people, it shouldn't be a problem."

"I wanna be in a raid with one hundred players," Magnhild suddenly said.

Rose scratched her head. "Yeah, same actually."

"That would be so awesome, though! We'd be like a literal army! Who cares if the enemy is twice as strong, there'd be a hundred of us! We'd totally kill it!"

Stormflower could only smile as the two continued talking. They were on the same wave length. No sense messing up a harmony with a voice that doesn't have the right pitch for it. Thus, he remained quiet, enjoying the fact that Magnhild was happy talking with someone else.

REMNANT ONLINE

And so begins the next arc to this story. The previous arc was more of an introduction to the world, characters, and nothing really major happens in terms of plot. Here, I just started a whole host of plot threads as well gave some characters the development they were lacking in the previous chapters. Expect more of that in the future.

Anyway, I won't make this A/N any longer. Until the next chapter, guys. See you.