November 31, 2022. Floor 1.

Haru Hayai:

As we ventured west towards the Persephone Mountains, I started to shiver more and more thanks to the unrealistic dropping temperature. Although it was fairly warm back in town, the emerald, flowery hills and valleys bordering the mountains were getting increasingly cold as we got nearer. We had been walking now for about an hour, give or take. We've been doing our best to avoid monsters who's levels were too high for us, and letting Maru get the last hit bonus on the mobs that he could take out. Karu looked at me, smiling, noticing my uncontrollable shivering, "Let's equip the cloaks those wild-boars dropped," he suggested, "They won't do much, but at least it's something to keep us warm."

We each went into our inventories and equipped the black cloaks the boars had dropped. We learned about the drops from various information brokers back in town. People like to feel like they're helping, without risking their lives in the process. I guess they are helping us, in a way. If there were no information brokers, we wouldn't know which mobs dropped what. If there were no merchants, we'd all be broke, due to the incredibly high prices that the NPCs charge for virtually any kind of equipment. The non-players were the ones who really upset me, though. The players on the frontlines are risking their lives for everyone, while the non-players are acting as if this isn't real. As if Kayaba Akihiko didn't trap us here.

Maru interrupted my thoughts and began talking about how cool we looked walking together with the black cloaks. "It's like we're all assassins on a mission," he said boastfully.

"We are, kind of," I agreed, "We're on a mission to kill wolves, so, I guess you could say we're assassins for that."

He laughed, "We're wolf assassins! Minus the wolf part," He put his finger to his chin and mumbled to himself, "Being a wolf assassin...would make me a wolf...who's an assassin.."

Karu and I looked at each other, joking about how he was trying to process too much at the same time. Maru became offended, fussing and saying that his brain can process just fine. As we walked over a particularly steep hill, I turned my attention to the mountains and stopped. I threw my arm out to my side to halt Maru and Karu. Nodding forward, they became quiet at the sight.

Ahead of us amongst the frozen and grassy fields were five wolf packs, separated by a few hundred meters each. Each pack consisted of six to eight gray and black furred wolves. Their blood-red eyes screaming vicious, their mandibles shook with saliva. We must've waltzed into their battle-engagement range because they darted in our direction, splitting into three packs of two. With no time to give commands or advice, Karu stated simply, "Stick together and keep your eyes on every direction," as we marched down the hill towards the wolves, weapons raised and pulses racing.

I gripped tightly my longsword and looked to my right to see Maru fighting off a few pups. With each hit landed on the young dogs Maru sent them flying with his blunt mace. Ahead of me, three larger wolves inched closer and closer. I exhaled, dashing forward. I slashed the smallest with a quick horizontal to vertical defensive move. Shattering it into countless shards, I seized my momentum and spun to the right, hitting the wolf next to me with a diagonal attack. It stepped back, but I gave it no time to recover. I thrusted my sword upwards, stabbing it through the neck. I turned around once more, and the next wolf pounced, on instant reaction I gave it a quick kick to the stomach, knocking it on its side. I hastily made shards of it with a finishing stab through the head.

I looked off to the right, Maru was now attacking some adolescent wolves by the looks of it. Larger than a pup, smaller than an adult. Further off, Karu was fighting a group of adults, making quick experience of them and taking no hits whatsoever. As expected of his playstyle.

I raced to the closest group of adults. I activated a sword skill that let me spin my sword in front of me, creating a blur of steel, Waking Steel. This made easy work of the first few dogs. I leaped forward, bringing my sword down from above me, cutting the next beast in half. Another went down, and another, and another. This quickly became routine. As every monster does when training. We continued like this for a slow, tedious two hours. Picking up petty drops and earning a decent sum of Col.

We had all leveled once since we started.

"Nii-chan! Look! I'm almost level seven!" Maru shouted at me as he ran towards a wolf that was larger than usual. It took me a second to realize that this was the Alpha, the mini-boss of the wolf mobs. Its eyes were void white, resembling blindness. Its two front fangs were as large as my legs, and dripped slobber onto its heavy dark coating.

"No-no-no-no Maru! Get back!" I frantically raced towards him, "Karu! I'll need some help over here!" Karu dementedly sprinted off in Maru's direction. Maru swatted the Alpha with his mace, but the Alpha hadn't has much as stumbled. Maru realized his situation and nervously tripped backwards. The beast raised his left arm, claws beaming. My shadow casted over Maru, a sign that my body was completely shielding his, a small smile grew on my face, a relief. I can't feel pain, but as the claws ripped through my coat shattering it, something, not pain, but maybe its cousin took over my body, as my knees nearly gave out. My sword was stabbing into the ground, with my body limping over it for support. My health dropped from green to yellow, and my heart pounded trying to escape from my chest. I pulled upwards on my sword as Karu came to my side.

"You okay?" He asked, drawing his great-sword.

"I'll be fine." I'm okay, I'll live for myself. For Karu. For Maru.

I jumped into the air despite my risky health, flipping backwards and landing on the giant wolf's neck. I dug my feet into its fur as it lashed around, I held onto a long strand of hair with my left hand gripping mercilessly, and began slashing with my right. Vertical to horizontal to diagonal combos, along with Karu's attacks diminished the Alpha's health to the red at a blazing speed. I yelled to Karu to back up as I held my sword near my side and slightly above my head. My sword was covered with a dark pink light, as I pushed off its back and aimed for the Alpha's nose. Landing on the snout, I gave it one last vertical strike, the skill Executioner's Word.

The beast fell on its side, breaking into thousands of blue and green shards. A window appeared in front of me, 'Congratulations! You've earned the Last Attack Rare Bonus Item: Wolf's Sentence'.

I turned around to see Maru in tears. He ran into me, hugging me while burying his face into my chest. I couldn't understand what he was saying through the tears and the fabric. He pulled his head back, "I almost got you killed, Nii-chan! I'm so sorry, don't hate me, please, please," he reburied his face into my cloak, "I'll never fight a wolf ever again."

I patted his head, "It wasn't your fault. The adult wolves and the Alpha look pretty similar. I probably would have done the same thing." Although they didn't look like each other at all.

Karu used a healing crystal on me, restoring me back to 500 HP.

"What was the last hit bonus item?" Karu asked.

"Oh, I almost forgot," I selected and equipped the sword from my inventory, "This thing."

On either side of the silver handle was a carved wolf head. The mouths were open, but showed no teeth. The eyes of the beast were decorated with shining but subtle ruby pieces. The blade was thin, yet heavy. The tip shined brightly when the light hit it, casting a blinding glare.

Karu whistled, "Damn," he commented while resting the back of his head on his wrists, "That's a fine looking blade. Too bad I don't use longswords. Consider yourself lucky, Haru-chan."

Maru brought his head out from my chest to look at the blade, "Wow!" His eyes lit up with a childish excitement, "That's so cool Haru-chan!" Nice to see how quickly his attitude changes when something shiny is involved. I swapped my old sword for the 'Wolf's Sentence', making it my primary. I smiled at the silver wolf heads, pleased with my performance.

"I guess so."

Notes:

I decided I was going to put ALOT of references to video games, TV shows or other animes some of my chapters, if not all. So this is where I'll be posting the references, so you can be like 'Oh I know what he's talking about' and it'll be cool.

First off, The FanFic is called Apricot Spring, as Kyou (Main character) means Apricot in English, and Haru (Main char) means Spring.

In this chapter, the brothers go west towards the Persephone Mountains. In the video game Bioshock 2, Persephone is a prison, in which your voice through Rapture is tragically killed.

Dog Days is a reference to Kane & Lynch 2 : Dog Days.