July 7, 2023. Floor 20.

Kyou Komoto:

If there's one thing I'll never get over it'll probably have to be the way the sun falls over the hills leaving streaks of purple and pink strained across the skies and the way the clouds' unshapely figure always manages to stretch further than a human eye can see. I lay on top the underbrush beneath towering oaks and willows that weep around a crystal lake. The coded world around me is surreal and perky but in reality it's just a sequence of information being fed to my brain. I'll congratulate Kayaba on this amazing world he's crafted; I'd still kill him though. The digital sun sank deeper and deeper into Aincrad, hiding behind hills and seas of tree.

Maybe I can nap. Waiting all day for a passerby is truly tedious and today I've been so unfortunate when it comes to match-ups. I've seen maybe fourteen tanks pass by, but tanks aren't my type. Tanks take well to poison too much, or any player with a high vitality number. What would be good is if a mage would waltz down, drunk and unarmored. And alone. That would be nice, but there is no magic in Sword Art Online, so I assume there are no mages. Maybe a player with a stat-build somewhat similar to mine would be something reasonable to hope for. But then again I'm wishing for my fortune, and at the same time the misfortune of a stranger, so I doubt the Aincrad gods and goddesses favor a misfit like myself.

I sulk deeper into the underbrush then immediately after hear a rustling sound roughly ten meters in front of me. A branch snapped in two, followed by hushed whispers.

"Shh! What if there are bandits around?! Stop being so loud Onii-chan!"

Onii-chan. What kind of relationship could they possibly have? I mentally shrug. I glide from the underbrush to the branches in a swift movement. I've done this a million times before and have it nearly mastered in terms of speed vs. silence.

"Stop moving," a wiser sounding man's voice commanded. Onii-chan's listening skill must be blistering high to have suspected me. Or maybe he's paranoid. I pushed my index finger and thumb together pulling down to open my interface on the lowest possible brightness available. It's not a practical visibility but I have it completely memorized and have no need to even look at it to select what I need whenever I may need it. I coast effortlessly to to the edge of the oak branch, as the party trails closer. I've done this dozens of times before, so now I wasn't nearly as nervous as I was the first five or six times. I tied a recorder crystal to my cheapest and most dispensable knife available, starting its audio and flinging the kunai with as much force that was possible without activating a sword skill. The blade cut the air landing modestly off-target on a tree about four meters behind my game.

"Help! Help! HELP! Please," the crystal bluffed.

Onii-chan and his senpai immediately turn their heads and an appropriate smile found way to me. With a sleight of hand two thin needles fall from my chainmail sleeve to the webbing of my fingers. I make a fist gripping them tightly and assumed the position for the system to override my movements and make them inhuman. The needles glow a dark purple and fly towards the startled prey. "Never turn your back to a projectile user," I say aloud as both the needles find way to the back of their necks. Both their health bars stayed exactly in place but unlike their HP their bodies fell immediately. I have exactly one hundred and twenty seconds to rummage through and take as I see fit.

"Who are you?!" Senpai screamed at me worriedly. Onii-chan was quick to comfort his friend.

"Daitaro-san," his smooth voice spoke unshaken, "He won't hurt you". I stood between them and smiled looking at one then the other a number of times.

"Onii-chan is right, Daitaro-san, I promise." I folded myself at my knees hovering over the ground in reach of both of them. I looked through their virtual packs and was displeased at the pitiful sum of Col Onii-chan had. I left his inventory alone, and then directed my attention to Daitaro-san. His inventory was not different than Onii-chan's, aside from one notable item, a treasure map. I took it into an empty space in my inventory, and placed beside both of them a couple of healing potions. "What you're experiencing right now is a specially made paralysis poison. With a alchemy level high enough you're able to make just about anything your imagination limits you to. It lasts one hundred and twenty seconds exactly, and if the both of you would have had a higher vitality then the poison would be much weaker," I opened my potion selection. "Here are two potions, made by me. As long as they are in your inventory whenever you are paralyzed they will automatically come into effect and negate the paralysis, so long as the potion is stronger. They are A-rank, so unless you're fighting an S-rank monster there's nothing to worry about in terms of being paralyzed," twenty more seconds and they'll regain control of their bodies.

"Thank you," Onii-chan mumbled with his eyes closed. Ten seconds left.

"For God's sake don't fall for recorder crystals again."

"Yeah, I know."

I scanned the immediate area for hostiles. Seeing that there were none I fled as fast as my deft legs would carry me.