Chapter 4: Theory and Virtual Reality

Daniel (Charlie) POV

Urrrrggg…

I hate mornings, that is an old and cliché line but I hate them, especially mornings in which you witness the aftermath from an exhausting, troublesome and embarrassing night.

Exhibit A: When my two day crush managed to show more than the acceptable amount of party animal when she got drunk at a mixer, thus ending up with numerous bruises on my cranium afterwards from her 'dancing' accidents.

Exhibit B: When I fainted in the bathtub of two naked girls in a VRMMORPG, with another knowing who I was, another thinking I was a lesbian, and my best friend who also knew my real gender, knowing the entire story.

Did I mention that I was only able to get my clothes on after I regained consciousness, since only I could open my menu, thus created the awkward problem of Akari having to help get me out of the bath and into bed.

As I'm thinking this, I glance over to my teammate, this managed to catch her eye and she smiled warmly back.

Well, at least that awkward tension cleared up nicely, thankfully, as soon as we talked it out briefly in the… bath, she became cheery like always.

Well, she's not hugging me like she did before, but I suppose that's only natural, guess she sees me as more of a guy now.

"You ARE a guy dipshit"

I KNOW that! I just mean she sees me as one more now, which I'm bloody thankful for; I don't think I would have been able to-

"Restrain yourself from ravishing her young and naive body?"

Okay, tuning out the perverted voice in your head.

"Admit it! You miss her hanging off your body twenty-four-seven"

… I won't say I didn't enjoy it.

"Hah!"

But I DON'T look forward to it; I'm a gentleman at heart.

"I don't see a dick"

Okay, ignoring for real.

"Hey, Daniel, you all right?"

I looked to the side to see Robert walking next to me; a quick glance confirmed that the rest of our party was far enough so we wouldn't be overheard.

"Yeah… just got a lot in my head right now" Heh, very punny.

"Mmm…"

We spent several seconds walking in silence.

"Robert?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you sure there is little chance of us getting through this without… you know"

"... As long as everyone keeps a cool head, everything should be fine, the boss itself is only the first one after all, it doesn't have any magic to blast us around, or wings, or anything that can really offset you, in fact, it's almost like a those mini-bosses we met before"

I looked at him, "Really?"

"Well… with more people needed obviously, just keep out of the way when the attacks start raining down and your health is low, we can get through this without being in too much danger"

I frowned slightly, "That seems… kind of cowardly, so we just let others take the hits?"

"They are a higher level and most have shields and other defences, they can take it"

"But I have one of the highest defence here, if anything, I should be the tank here"

He gave me a look, "We were drafted as a group for support, which means we have to handle healing and other problems, fighting in the front lines isn't what we're meant to do"

I broke eye contact with him and stared at the floor, his damn logic is pissing me off.

"Daniel… I know it kills you when you leave a job to someone else, but try to remember that taking on everything by yourself isn't going to help you in the long run, sometimes, it's best to leave these things to other people"

"So promise me, that you won't make any unnecessary risks while we're taking on this"

I hesitated for a few moments, before I gave a reluctant nod.

"Good"

He then quickened his pace to catch up with the group while I lagged behind.

This situation… reminded me so much of when we organised a hack into somewhere larger than someone's home PC, I would always want to break in from the front, but Robert would always persuade me to do it the smart way.

The smart way… is that what this is called?

"Hello again"

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked up at a familiar figure.

"Oh! I remember, you're the guy I met on day one right? Ummm, Agil?"

My respect for the gentle giant went up a lot when he stood up for the beta testers at the meeting, to think he was the same guy who was blubbering over his virtual wig before.

"Yeah, I'm sorry for leaving you behind… I just had to sort out my head"

"It's alright; I had a friend with me to help"

We walked together in silence.

"So…" I spoke up, "How has the month been treating you?"

"Honestly? Not that good, sure, I haven't had that much trouble personally, but the things you see out there… I just hope we get out of here soon"

I nodded silently, over three thousand deaths is nothing to be light hearted about, and I can't imagine how most of them went.

"Me too… I'm just hoping to get my friends out of here really"

"Mmm? What about yourself?"

I thought on that.

"Well… hehe, I guess I never really thought of my safety taking procedure before theirs"

He frowned slightly, "As admirable as that is, being dead won't help matters, so try looking out for you as well"

I gave a full blown grin, "Who do you think you're talking to, I'm D-eh, Charlie, the most Badass girl out there, there's not much that can touch me!"

He blinked slightly at my sudden cheery mood before grinning back,

"Good to hear, I need to go and join up with my party, good luck in while you're in their"

He walked away to another group of guys a little way from me, leaving me to my thoughts again.

Everything is just too complicated right now, to fight? Or not to fight?

I feel like if I have the power, I should use it, that big boss could be a complete danger if something unexpected happens…

Yet what could I do? Sure, I'm building up to be one hell of a tank, but I'm still small fry at level 7, yet again… I'd probably invested into strength and endurance like stats a lot, maybe more than some of the guys here…

I then took a deep breath, but put off incredibly when the feeling of air rushing into my lungs didn't feel right, great… you can't replicate everything exactly I guess, and water is another example of that I guess.

THUD!

"OW!" I said out loud as I drew away from the person I walked into, looking up, I saw it was Robert again.

"We're here" he answered shortly, sure enough, the raid party were sitting in groups as the knight guy, Diabel, was briefing everybody.

I looked the guy over, I didn't really see the guy as much, a 'knight' guy who is the leader just didn't really capture my attention, he seemed kind of minor in a way.

"Mmm…" I looked over to see Robert looking thoughtful.

"What is it?" I asked, he seemed to be staring at empty space.

"I think… I've seen Diabel before"

"... yeah, he was the one who set this up-

"I mean before all that" he interrupted, "I think he is a Beta-Tester"

My eyes widened, "Really?"

He gave a short nod, "Maybe he needed help to progress through to the next floor, so he posed as a normal player in order to gather people to fight, people don't take kindly to Beta-Testers after all"

"Why does he have blue hair?"

Robert then slapped his hand to his face.

"Everything you hear me say and that is what you ask?"

"I'm just curious" I tried to defend myself.

"In the game you can find hair dyes that change the colour, not anything that big compared to what I JUST said"

I gave a deadpan look at him, "Robert, you're a Beta-Tester, Mr Groper is a Beta-Tester, the Brat Rat is one as well, I think I've had my fair share of Beta-Tester's at the moment"

He had the decency to look embarrassed.

"Besides, whatever the reasons he still managed to get everyone together to the boss floor instead of running around like headless chickens, it's hardly going to change that much"

"I doubt that, when it comes to unpredictable situations, EVERYTHING can factor a change"

He was really serious right now, he must be dreading the upcoming battle just as much as me in a way.

"What's he going to do, stab over thirty people in the back? We can't be doubting people; things will just fall to pieces then"

"Caution never hurts"

"Caution doesn't win many friends either, look Robert, I may have not played any VR games before this, but I have played my share of MMORPG's, we can't keep as just three people for so long, we need to rely on people if we are going to go forward"

He stayed quiet for a while, I expected him to say something, but he just nodded his head.

"Thanks" I said shortly, I then turned my attention back to the door, the door that would lead to the first floor boss, I felt my heart beat faster as I watched the blue haired 'knight' push the door open, it gave way and exposed the inner chamber.

Diabel then walked inside, with the rest of us following close behind, the place was as dark as heck as we came in, and then all of a sudden, the place lit up instantly, now showing us a room full of pillars.

Then I focused to the end of the room, there, hunched up at the back, was a…

"You've got to be fucking kidding me" I said out loud, "ANOTHER freaking rat!"

"Technically, it's a Kobold" Robert intoned next to me, readying his weapons yet still keeping a slightly amused edge to his voice.

"Fuck you Lucian, it's a motherfucking rat on two legs and I FUCKING hate rats!" I pulled my Iron Spear off my bag and readied it as well; I vaguely felt the eyes of the other members of my party on the back of my head.

"Does Charlie-San usually get this… vocal?" I heard Asuna from behind me.

"Well, for the time I've known her, she usually does it in a fight, I think it's a way she keeps calm" Akari answered her,

"The thing that I'm wondering is how there isn't a Profanity Filter here..." Kirito commented,

If you think I'm bad, wait till you meet mini me.

"I thought that I was the perverted one in this relationship?"

Serious situation will think of snappy comeback later.

Wait just got one, NO HOMO!

"Wait! Shit, I didn't mean it like-

HAH! Too late.

RAWWWWWWRRRR!

I yelped as the rat-man then leaped off from his throne that he was sitting on, and landing in the middle of the room, hefting two giant blades as he glared at us with red eyes.

And several flashes of light materialised from around him, and little mini rat-men appeared as well, we were up against an entire freaking pack of them.

I simply breathed in, and focused on the fight, the little rat-men were running around the bulk of the fighters with a zippy kind of run, Illfang as his name said, was taking on the fighters at the front with his two swords, the guys were blocking each move easily enough thankfully, and were dealing him damage a good amount as well, I guess I might not really be needed after all.

I smiled as I then focused on getting around the battlefield, that's when I saw one of the boss's minions running at me. As it approached I thrust my spear towards it neck, clipping it and sending it reeling.

Not letting it recover I move in closer and struck another blow, hitting it in the chest as is exploded into pixels. Looking around Kirito and Asuna were killing Kobolds left right and centre in a slightly beautiful dance of blades, I would have stared at it if it wasn't for the fact that it was so dangerous.

Akari was behind me struggling to fight off another one of the minions with her mace when Robert appeared seemingly out of nowhere and impaled it on his dagger.

He looked at me, wordlessly pointing out I should be keeping a better eye on her as I promised. It turned out as this was Akari first game and she didn't understand that when picking a weapon skill its best to use that weapon, so when she had a sword before, she didn't know that the mace skill her mace attacks were improved.

Another few of the rat minions came in again, and this time I rushed them to get them away from the ones attack the big one, two of them came in front of me and try to slash, I grinned as I simply pulled off a quick backstep and then swung my spear around and slashed both of their stomachs, I then charged up on my attack, and pierced both of them with a set of five successive stabs for each of them.

I then ducked as I heard another behind me, and then used my 'Sweeper' move to trip him to the ground with a swish of my spear, I then brutally ended it with a quick stab into the helmet spaces.

Looking at the boss, I saw that he was nearly defeated, I felt myself grin in excitement, we were actually going to beat him!

Hah! And I was worried for nothing.

Oh wait! I forgot!

The beast suddenly roared at the players and then threw his shield and axe away, high up it flew, and ended up falling a distance away, the axe embedding into the ground with a crash.

"Stand back! I'll take care of this!"

Say what now?

I look to see Diabel running through the crowd towards the beast, everyone staying back because of his orders.

What the heck? In this situation, it would be better to bum rush him, why are we doing this lone hero shit!

I was distracted as another minion jumped out in front of me, and I had to quickly raise my spear to block a hit, and then knocked him back with a hit to the temple with the blunt end.

Staggering back, he didn't have a chance when I pierced through his chest with another thrust of my spear.

"Diabel! Watch out, that's not a Talwar, that's an No-dachi!" I glanced back at the boss to see that it's weapon was in fact different from what Robert described, a small part of me wondered exactly what this would change.

Then the rat leaped!

My jaw opened at that, this was an MMORPG, I didn't think it would have something that looked like a game cutscene, the VR part must have screwed up my knowledge of that.

It was jumping off several pillars around the area, making me gape at how something that big was so agile, and then it came back down, towards Diabel.

"No!" I shouted, as the boss's blade crashed down into the blue knight, another swing sent Diabel into another direction, I was stunned at these turn of events and felt my mind freeze.

"RAAAAAAGGGG!" Roared the boss, he was now laying the attacks down at the others of the raid party, all of them confused and not knowing what to do, they were getting slaughtered by him.

I only felt slight hesitation, before I found myself sprinting towards them.

Before the rat could bash in somebodies head with a downwards swing, I raised by spear to block it, I felt a shock travel through my body from it.

"What the FUCK are you doing?!" I shouted at the player, "Do you want to die? Get up and don't give this thing an opening!" I couldn't tell if he got my message or not, because I had to turn my block to the left to block yet another attack, now aimed at me.

"FUCK YOU, you oversized, pseudo vermin COCKBITE!" I jumped with my limited agility to dodge a sweeping blade nearly taking off my legs, and swung back my arm to thrust five times into it's gut, his eyes glared dangerously, and I found myself pale that I hardly done any damage to him.

It displayed shocking speed as it then sung another swing at me, I quickly raised my spear to block again but-

*CRRRRRG!*

My eyes widened, I couldn't comprehend it, my weapon… broke?

I fell to the ground in a heap, and I looked up at Illfang, who now was swinging another hit, I knew it wouldn't do much, but on reflex, I brought both my hands up to block.

*BISSSSHH"

I felt my body fly through the air, and even if I didn't feel pain, I was overcome with a stinging sensation throughout my body, I couldn't tell how long I was weightless, until I hit the ground with a thud.

"CHARLIE!"

I could hear Akari's voice slightly, my mind still fuzzy from the trauma I received, I put my hands shakily under my body, and looked up at the scene.

Several players were getting tossed around, some trying to hold up the defense and failing due to the lack of players. Looking to the side, I say Kirito, crouching over the body of Diabel, now dissolving into blue pixels.

This… this…

What was I supposed to do...

A/N: Cliffhanger! Hope you enjoyed the chapter, because I plan to get onto the next one ASAP, Expect it soon!

I'll see you next time when we get on to the rest of the fight, and so, I cast a curse of anticipation on you, so you won't be able to sleep until you find out the next chapter, MWAHAHAHAHA!