Chapter 4: Moving Up

A/N: Hello again. I have gotten two reviews for this story, one that boosted my confidence and the one that totally ripped it to shreds (and one that was too funny for me to take seriously). Good, bad, or otherwise any reviews are helpful to the writing process. If you guys or girls have any ideas that you think would make my story better, I'm all ears. More on that later. For now, enjoy!

As I climbed that stairs to floor two, I racked my brain to see what I remembered about the second floor from the Beta test. Yeah, I am a Beta tester. So what? It's not like I've taken advantage of my knowledge and jumped in front of everyone to show off. Well maybe not showing off but… regardless as to how I act, being a Beta tester has just become rather difficult. The first floor boss, Illfang the Kobold Lord, was just defeated about fifteen minutes ago. It should have been a time to celebrate; instead it turned into a finger pointing event in which Beta testers were singled out as being the reason for the loss of the over two thousand player's lives on the first floor. Though not all Beta testers have a bad light on them, only the "Beaters." The ex-Beta testers who have more knowledge than the regular player who use that knowledge for their own personal gain. The "leader" of the Beaters is the one who got the Last Attack on the boss, Kirito.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when the words Inner Area floated across my HUD. I looked up to see a few of the NPC's walking around. They looked similar to the ones on the first floor, but with just a hint of change to give off the feeling of being on a different floor. The whole town had this kind of sad vibe to it. It was probably just the subtle change in the instruments from the first floor to the second. I continued to walk into the town, trying to get my bearings when I noticed a green cursor on my HUD, another player. I started to walk towards them, but suddenly the green arrow was moving quickly to the right as if the player was sprinting. I wondered what they could possibly be running from when suddenly another green arrow appeared, then another and another. Pretty soon a sea of green arrows appeared and started to spread out. It was then that I realized that the player who I had seen running must have been Kirito, and he had opened the teleport gate connecting to the first floor.

Why would he do something like that? We could have easily completed some of the easier slaughter quests before any of the other players arrived. It also ruined any chance that I had of talking to him alone. As the ocean of players began to spread out, I realized that I had to blend in so that I wouldn't appear suspicious.

I moved among the others without attracting a whole lot of attention as I moved towards the center of the plaza. Suddenly a petite avatar jumped through the portal, she nearly ran me over as she sprinted away. While she ran away I looked after her with a confuse expression, I had this feeling that I had seen her before, but I couldn't place it. The only things that I could see on her face were a pair of whiskers on her cheeks. Before I could put two and two together, a pair of tall lean avatars shoved past me and ran after the girl. The girl I now know to be none other than Argo "The Rat", the most famous/infamous info broker that the Beta test had to offer.

If those two guys were chasing after her, then she must have some pretty useful info that she isn't willing to share. Or they don't have the money necessary to buy it off her. I began to jog after the trio of players when I noticed a flash of movement on the rooftops to my right. I didn't pay it any mind and continued on my way.

I thought back to the Beta test trying to remember if there was anything useful that could be obtained at such of low level. I couldn't think of any items that were rare enough for two guys to chase after The Rat. So either they were really stupid. Or really, really smart. The thought of me being outsmarted spurred me to quicken my pace. Pretty soon I was all out sprinting after them.

When I reached the border of the town, I slowed but only for a second as I passed through the invisible barrier that made the town safe and the wilderness dangerous.

Ahead of me lay a field of golden wheat that went on for as far as the map would allow. I could see multiple paths where the wheat had been trampled underfoot. By multiple, I mean two. The one that I was following was larger than the other and led straight towards a rocky outcropping. The second smaller trail seemed to have a similar destination in mind. I continued along the larger trail and arrived at the entrance to the rocky outcrop. I moved to one side of the entrance when I heard voices. I couldn't quite hear what they were saying, but strained to do so anyway. I knew I needed to know what was going on. So I moved closer. When I was close enough to hear voices, what I heard turned me to stone.

"... The acquisition quest for the Extra Skill already!"

An Extra Skill quest? This early in the game? There was no way that could be true. If the Rat knew about one, she must have found out about it herself. As far as I or anyone else was aware the first Extra Skill quest was on the sixth floor, and the skill itself wasn't very desirable. That skill was called Meditation, and it didn't have any offensive capabilities so very few players got it once they knew what it was. If these two goons were willing to chase after the Rat, and keep up with her, this skill must have some offensive abilities.

I moved my hand to the hilt of my sword and began to creep towards the entrance. I needed to assess the situation, if I had to fight two on one I would. Wouldn't be happy about it, or live to tell about it, but if I had to I would.

Suddenly a new voice joined the other three,

"Oh, that's it!"

The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't match a name to the voice. Whoever it was seemed to know what was going on. I really hated that I wasn't in the loop. I was about to move into the entrance to figure out what the hell was going on when a crunching sound was made behind me. I whipped around and found myself face to face with a Trembling Ox.

It stood about two, two and a half, meters to the shoulder and was almost bursting with muscle. I remembered these monsters from the Beta. They were found only on the second floor, had attack power and strength that fit their bodies, and had the longest targeting ranges of any of the monsters that I fought during the Beta. I turned to face the Ox head on and backed up as far as I could against the wall. There was no way I was going to survive a fight against this thing and then another possible fight to save Argo. But what if it attacked the two goons who were trying to coerce info out of her?

My mind began running a few scenarios, the best involve climbing the rocks so that the Ox couldn't get to me, but would be fully able to attack the goons. I turned to face the rock and began to climb as fast as I could. I reached a point where I thought I would be safe from it and turned around. The Trembling Ox just looked up at me and then turned its head to the entrance to the outcrop. Hopefully it would find easier targets than me.

I sat and watched the Ox move into the enclosure, I didn't have to wait long to get reaction. There were a pair of shouts and I saw two figures dash past me headed towards the town with a massive cow moving at a speed that didn't match its size. The earth trembled beneath its mighty hooves as it chased the two fools who thought that they could get rough with the Rat.

I sat on that ledge and watch the chase until I finally saw the huge bulk of the Ox disappear over the horizon.

Climbing down the rocks was a more difficult challenge than originally thought. While descending, my left foot slipped and I was barely able to hang on with my hands.

"Curse my lack of upper body strength." I muttered to myself.

I looked down over my left shoulder to see the Rat and, was that Kirito? It looked like the same cloak that he equips after the first floor boss and since there were no others like it, it had to be him.

"Hey, Kirito! Could you, uh, give me a hand getting down from here? Please?" I called over to him hoping he would lend me some assistance. I started to look for any footholds that I could use to continue climbing down.

I found one near where my right foot was dangling; as I applied my weight slowly it seemed to hold.

"You seem to have everything under control," I heard Kirito say.

I looked back over my shoulder to see him smiling with Argo struggling to contain her laughter.

"Come on man, help a brother- SHIT!"

In my effort to make a retort I leaned too far off of the wall and lost my handholds, thus beginning my free fall headfirst to the ground four meters below me.

I put my arms out in front of me and braced myself for the collision. As soon as my hands touched the ground I tucked and rolled and came to a stop right in front of Kirito and Argo.

I gave them a sheepish smile and got to my feet while dusting myself off. I turned to walk back to Urbus when I remembered how I got out here. I was chasing two guys who were chasing Argo that had information about a secret skill that supposedly was very useful. I raised my right hand and turned one hundred eighty degrees on my heel and said to the pair,

"You know if I hadn't been there to attract the Trembling Ox, you would have had to fight those two alone, and no offense, I don't think you would have won. So, if you tell me about this hidden skill, I'll call it even."

Kirito turned to Argo and they had a silent conversation together. When I looked back at me he looked like he was about to deliver grave news. He was scowling slightly with his eyebrows knit close together and his lips turned down into a frown. He let out a sigh as Argo stepped forward. She looked me in the eye and I was intimidated despite her much smaller stature. She said,

"I'll take you to the Hidden Skill, but you have to promise one thing: Regardless of the outcome, don't blame me-na!"

It seemed kind of strange for me. Was this going to be a dangerous quest? Was my life going to be in danger? I thought over what could be the possible outcomes and I came to the conclusion that going for this quest would be worth my time. If things kept going the way they were, we wouldn't make it to the sixth floor. I needed all the help I could get for myself.

"I promise, that regardless of the outcome, I will not hold you responsible."

Argo seemed to accept my promise and bowed deeply. "Now follow me-na," and she turned around and began to walk away.

We walked for hours. It. Was. Terrible.

I am usually the one who will explore endlessly when playing a game, but this was just terrible. It was worse than terrible, it was turrible.

Argo led Kirito and I deep into the mountains of Floor 2, along twisting paths and across dangerous cliffs. I looked down to my left over a cliff face trying to see the bottom; all I could see was black. I thought about what would happen if you fall, would you die when you hit the bottom, or would the system just assume that you couldn't survive a fall from this height and kill you on the way down?

There was something to think about, being killed by the system and not another player. Who would be at fault there? The player? The people around the player who let him jump? Or would it be Akihiko Kayaba, the developer of the game and the NerveGear that was currently positioned over my head poised to kill me at a moment's notice. The fault would be on him, or at least it should be. He was the one who designed this death game; he let innocent people die because he just wanted to make some money. If I survive long enough to get out of this hell hole, I am going to sue that motherfucker for everything he has and then some.

Lost in my thoughts I bumped into Argo, not noticing that she had stopped.

"Sorry about that, I was… elsewhere…"

She shrugged; I looked up to see we had arrived at the mouth of a small cave with a river running right down the middle.

"Is this where the Extra Skill is located?" I asked.

"Yeah, but we're not there yet-na!" Argo replied with a sly smile.

I looked at Kirito and tried to see how he reacted to this. He was looking straight ahead, completely focused. He probably didn't hear anything that we just said.

He stepped forward and led the three of us into the cave. I looked over my shoulder at the last bit of sunlight that shone through the cave. It was a pretty beautiful scene actually, the dust particles floating in the air catching and reflecting the sun. It was almost peaceful, but then I remembered that this was all a lie, and the man behind it was a cowardly murderer.

As we moved farther into the cave I thought that something wasn't adding up. If this hidden skill was so important, why was it so easy to get to? I was about to raise my doubts when I heard a faint buzzing sound.

"Hey, do you guys hear that?"

Argo stopped walking but Kirito kept moving and replied calmly over his shoulder,

"Yeah, been hearing that for about five minutes now. I think there are some enemies up ahead."

"Well thanks for keeping us in the loop, Kirito."

I shook my head and prepared to ready my sword. With my left hand I just slightly removed the sword from its scabbard. The path in front of us was dark and the buzzing began to grow increasingly louder. Suddenly, there were monsters all around us. They looked like giant wasps, easily ten times the size of a regular wasp.

I drew my sword from my scabbard and began my attacks. Sword skills weren't needed here, just regular attacks with our weapons. I began swinging my sword in elegant circles and advanced upon my first opponent. With a quick thrust to the abdomen it turned to a shower of blue polygons that briefly lit up the immediate area. The next three wasps that I faced were dispatched similarly. I try not to waste my energy fighting; I will need it for when I do the real fighting later.

I turned around to find Kirito already walking away and Argo giving me one of those looks, like 'Come on man, you're so slow.'

I sheathed my sword and hurried after the two into the darkness ahead.

After two more encounters with giant wasps…

"Jesus Argo, where are we?" I asked exasperated.

Kirito was the one to answer, he gave me a calm (does this guy have any other emotions?) answer,

"Well according to the map, we are near the summit of a high mountain on the southern border of the second floor."

I made a mental note of what he said. With my right hand I opened my main menu and maneuvered over to the map tab and placed a marker about where I was standing. Info on this special skill could be worth a small fortune, especially on such a low level.

We turned around a corner and were met with the sight of a lone tree, a small pond, and a quaint little hut.

"...Is it here?" Kirito asked hesitantly.

Argo nodded and walked over to the hut without any hesitation. When she got to the front door she forcefully kicked it in.

I was a little bit surprised by her actions but relaxed when she didn't seem afraid that something would attack. Kirito and I peered over her shoulders to see an NPC sitting in a room with some simple furniture. A cot in the corner, small fire pit with a kettle hanging over it, and a few small cabinets scattered around.

The NPC was not the frail old man I had been expecting. Who else would sit atop a high mountain and offer wisdom? He was surprisingly well built, with a bald head and a large thick beard. If he had any tattoos on him and a black leather jacket, I would have thought he was a member of a biker gang. There was a large ? floating above his head, indicating that he had a quest to give. I took a step back and opened my menu again.

I went to my friend's list and scrolled down to Mattias, I sent him a quick message, "Keep it secret. Keep it safe." This was part of our code, this simply meant… (What? you thought I was going to tell you? HA! You will find out soon enough).

I tuned back into the conversation that Argo and Kirito had started,

"This is service-yo," Argo said then elaborated, " Martial Arts is a skill that allows attacking with bare hands… that is my speculation. It would be effective when the weapon is dropped, or its durability is at the limit-na."

Kirito was processing the information as he said, "O-Oh… then it would be useful, unlike Meditation . In that case… I see, so that's why you got stuck with those ninja at that place…"

"Ninja? What ninja?" I interjected.

"Those guys in the field that chased me out of town-yo," Argo explained to me.

"Oh, those were ninja? They didn't look like ninja. They looked like pirates."

We didn't linger on the subject and returned our focus to why we were here in the first place, the Hidden Skill, Martial Arts .

Things were starting to make sense to me. They wanted this skill because it would make them more like ninja. There was one thing that wasn't making sense to me, why didn't Argo just say, 'I don't know."? Kirito must have been thinking along the same lines because his next question was the very one I had been thinking,

"Then, why didn't you just say 'I don't know' at that time? So they wouldn't keep haunting you like that?"

Argo was already one step ahead, she responded without any hesitation, "That single 'I don't know' would destroy my pride as an information dealer."

"So instead," I reasoned, "You chose to say 'I know but won't sell it'. I understand what you mean, if people think that you don't have all the information you claim to have, then they won't trust you to have any information at all."

"And the reason you won't sell is that the one who buys it would hold a grudge against you." Kirito then continued, "But even saying so, don't you already have a lot of enemies due to your business?"

Argo was quick to dismiss that line of thought, "People usually forget the grudge having bought information just after three days-sa." She looked down and a shadow fell across her face hiding her features from us, but she continued, "But this guy is different-da! Even if it turns out to be lame, you still have to keep it for your whole life-yo…" She trailed off and I was beginning to understand what she meant.

She meant that no matter what happens, there is a chance that we will carry this mark for the rest of our lives.

Argo began to shudder slightly; Kirito stepped forward and said,

"I already knew I'd need to experience it myself anyway. So its fine, I promise. No matter what the outcome, I won't blame Argo."

He turned to me and gave me a pointed look that clearly told me to promise the same thing.

I quickly stepped up to Argo and told her,

"I promise that I won't hold a grudge against you." I gave her a small smile hoping that it would reassure her. She returned my smile, but I could tell she wasn't reassured. There was just something about the way her eyes scanned my face that gave the feeling that she wanted this conversation to end. I took a step back and turned to Kirito, gave him a nod and we both approached the old man in the hut.

The old man looked up from his meditation pose and asked simply,

"Thou wishes to be a disciple?"

Kirito and I looked at each other out of the corners of our eyes and said at the same time,

"...Yes"

"Even though there be a long and steep road of training?" The old man continued.

"I'm expecting no less," Kirito said. I wish I could have sounded as confident as he did. I was afraid that this guy was going to give us an impossible task and mark us for the rest of our lives.

The ? above the old man's head changed into a ! , thus indicating that the quest had been accepted.

The old man, whom Kirito and I now called Master, led us outside towards a huge rock at the edge of the garden. The rock was surrounded by cliffs that reached even further into the sky than I thought. The boulder itself was about two meters tall, and about a meter and a half in diameter. The master approached the rock and placed his right hand gingerly on the surface while he stroked his beard with his left hand. He spoke,

"Thine training is just one. Splitting this rock using only thy palms. Once thou have succeeded, I shall teach thee all my knowledge."

"Hold on a second…" "... W-Wait a bit." Kirito and I said at the same time.

Kirito moved over to the rock and laid his hand on it. He closed his eyes and concentrated on its durability. Suddenly his eyes opened wide like dinner plates and I could tell that we were in for a world of suffering. He moved to try and talk to the Master but was cut off.

"Until this rock is split, leaving this mountain is forbidden. And thou hast to demonstrate it in front of me," the Master said. Then he moved with outstanding speed and quickly painted something on Kirito's face before moving to me and doing the same thing. I was too surprised to even try and move.

Argo, who was standing off to the side, looked like she was trying to hold back laughter. Kirito was trying to remove the marks from his face, rubbing furiously with both hands but to no avail.

The Master spoke then, "That Mark cannot be removed until thou hath split this rock and finished the training. I believe in thee, my disciples."

With that he turned and walked into his hut and slammed the door.

… (Three days later) …

"Thank the Gods, it's finally over. Three days and nights on non-stop punching and we finally broke that damn rock," I said while breathing heavily.

Kirito, with his hands on his knees and his head down, just nodded in agreement. Then he said, "It's a good thing we promised not to hold a grudge against Argo."

I chuckled and nodded along with him. Argo would have most definitely had some people hold grudges against her if she sold the info for this quest to players who weren't strong enough mentally to complete it.

That got me thinking; perhaps the most powerful weapon in the game was not a sword?

A/N: How are you guys enjoying the story so far? I know it's really slow right now but I promise that the next chapter will have a lot more action in it than this one. If you have any ideas I'd love to hear them! Until next time.