"So, Why are you dragging me through this forest?" Lizbeth asked, following closely behind Ezra as he wandered farther down the path. They had come to the third floor on a recommendation from Argo to take part in a campaign quest. The pair now walked through the thick forest that covered the whole floor, keeping to the path so the didn't get lost.

"Because your a level three and this quest has decent exp." Ezra replied, glancing back at her. She was donned in heavy armor, its origin apparently from the same quest they were searching for. "Just stay in that armor and we don't have to worry about you dying. I payed Kirito a lot of money to get you that."

"The evil, selfish beater, secretly the benefactor of his friends and all around nice guy." Liz said, swinging her mace limply out of boredom. "I would imagine nobody would believe us if we told them."

Ezra stopped in place, a grin growing on his lips. "That's true, but we're not going to tell are we?" Liz nodded, remembering the conversation they had before. "Good. No reason to get in his way now."

"Yeah, I get it." Liz said, walking past her partner and spinning on one foot before whining. "Can we keep moving now? I'm bored."

Ezra held a finger to his lips, his smile still on his face. "If you listened to your surroundings, you would notice something important." Liz gave him an annoyed look and fell silent, straining her ears for what Ezra was talking about. Ezra's smile widened as her eyes widened.

A faint ring of metal on metal could be heard through the trees. "Is that..." Lizbeth started, but Ezra cut her off with a sharp hand movement. He then lifted his arm in a right angle and folded it twice, his face turning serious. Liz may be new to this, but she understood the message. Keep quite and follow me.

Ezra took off quietly, running through the trees with his weapon ready. Liz followed closely as she could, her agility points nowhere near Ezra's. The male noticed and slowed down for her, giving her a quick apologetic look before continuing on at a fast pace.

As they came closer to the noise Ezra slowed and eventually came to a halt, raising a fist at a right angle. Halt, be ready. Liz followed orders and crouched close to the ground, peering out into the clearing they had come to the edge of. Flashes of light came into existence and collided over and over again, each time accompanied by the ring of metal. Two silhouettes did battle, unaware that two humans now watched from the shadows.

"Follow my lead, and don't get hit by sword skills." Ezra said, rising to his feet and walking out with his weapon ready. The two silhouettes stopped at the sight of him, giving Lizbeth a good view of them as she followed Ezra. They were elves.

"A human?" The female elf asked, her purple eyes zeroing in on Ezra. She had dark skin and was donned in equally dark armor. She was quite beautiful.

"Begone from here! Do not intervene!" The light skinned elf barked, his sharp face contorted in anger. He was donning an armor that looked like leaves, fitting of the forest elf he was. Over each of their heads glowing explanation mark changed to a question mark, indicating the availability of a quest.

Ezra didn't bother trying to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each one and walked over to stand next to the dark elf. Liz followed him, her weapon at the ready. "We'll fight for the dark elves." Ezra announced, causing the question marks to disappear.

The forest elf's face changed from anger to rage. "You scum! How dare you side with the dark elves. You shall parish!" Ezra took the exclamation calmly, his posture loose and relaxed. He casually took note of a third HP bar appear under Lizbeth's as he waited for the fight to begin.

The trick to this quest is that you can't win. As soon as the whole party's HP bars dropped into the yellow whoever they were fighting for would unleash their final attack and one shot the other guy, sacrificing themselves in the process. Ezra had told Liz this, but he also mentioned a little intel sent from his favorite beater friend that it was possible to save the elf.

The forest elf let out a fierce battle cry and charged, his sword glowing yellow as he brought it down from over his head. Ezra dodged to the side and landed a hit on the elf's unguarded side before he retreated a pace. He then followed up with a bisect, chipping away a small slither of his targets HP.

The forest elf tried to turn and attack back, but his attention was drawn to the dark elf as he had to block a rather powerful hit with his shield. He pushed his shield hard and shoved away the dark elf's sword and landed a glancing blow on her in return. He landed another cut on her arm before he paused for a second. Lizbeth took this chance to rush in and hit him with her mace, unaware of the danger she was putting herself in as the sword began to glow. Too late, she tried to backtrack out of the way. The Elf's glowing red blade left a deep cut across her chest.

"Lizbeth!" Ezra called out, lunging in and sweeping at the elf's feet. The elf nimbly dodged out of the way, not taking his eyes off of the dark elf that he was currently engaging. Ezra glanced at his partners HP gadge, thankful she didn't take to much damage thanks to the armor. In other words, she took massive damage and was barely above red due to the massive level gap of 15 to 3. "Stay out of the fight and don't get hit. Down a minor healing potion just in case."

Ezra charged into they fray and landed a double crescent into his opponent flank, drawing his agro. He managed to block a slash with his staff, only to stagger slightly when the forest elf slammed his shield into him. He quickly regained his balance and stabbed at the elf, barely causing any damage whatsoever. The forest elf landed a cut into Ezra's shoulder before he took a three hit sword skill in the back from the dark elf. Ezra took the advantage and retreated a step, deciding he would use a skill unique to the halberd.

See, there is only one main difference between a Halberd and a Glaive. Both weapons are essentially the same design and characteristics, so they were often mistaken together. But the Halberd has a small cloth tassel attached to the back of the blade that followed behind it. This would be insignificant to most people, but anyone who knows anything about the weapon knew that this tassel was the most important part. For the only difference between these weapons was their fighting style.

Ezra began to move in a rhythmic dance, spinning and twirling his weapon at high speeds around his body as he approached his target. The blade of his weapon stayed the same color as the sword skill activated, something unheard of in sword art online. Instead, the small tassel attached behind the blade began to glow, switching between red, blue, and green at a fast rate. The two elves separated and watched his approach. Ezra began to move faster and faster, his blade soon becoming almost impossible to see, all those who saw him had to rely on the tassel to see where it was. The forest elf raised his shield in preparation for an oncoming blow. Ezra soon came in to striking distance and, not slowing his motions, flicked his weapon in an attack. The tassel came flying at his target from the left and the elf shifted his stance and raised his shield to fend off the attack...

Only to feel the cold steel of the blade sink into his unguarded back. Before he could tell what was happening Ezra landed a total amount of seven more hits on his back before his skill ended. Even after Ezra's attack had ended the elf stayed in the position he had started in, small currents of a electricity effect running off of his body indicating he was stunned.

"Liz, piñata!" Ezra shouted, rushing in and launching as many attacks as he could. Illusion strike had a really long cool-down period, but had a bloody awesome 30% chance of stun per hit! So for the next few seconds or so the poor guy couldn't fight back. Ezra, Liz, and the dark elf rushed the enemy and dished out as much damage as they could in the brief moment he was stunned.

The forest elf quickly recovered from the stun after a few seconds, but those few seconds easily reduced his HP bar a good 15%. The elf dodged out from between them before he paused with his sword trailed out behind him, it's blade starting to glow red. He set his angry eyes on the closest target to him and charged. Ezra charged too.

Time seemed to slow down for Ezra as he charged as hard as he could at Liz, who had backed away from the fray when she thought the stun was going to wear off. Now she was the only one close to the forest elf and the closest to dying. Even as Ezra ran he could tell that he wouldn't make it in time to intercept the attack. He spun his halberd around out of desperation and lunged at the girl as hard as he could, swinging the weapon like a baseball bat. The wooden pole connected with her side and the force of the hit sent her tumbling out of harms way. Ezra allowed himself a smile of satisfaction for accomplishing his goal. Then the glowing red blade tore into his unprotected side, causing his HP to deplete into the yellow.

The dark elf called out to the holy tree to grant her it's blessing, releasing a blinding white light and killing the forest elf. On her dying breath she gave Ezra a small bag made of leaves that contained a key and ordered him to take it to the dark elf commander before she shattered into hundreds of polygons.

"Looks like we're not getting a dark elf companion." Ezra sighed, getting to his feet. He tucked away the bag into his inventory and turned to Liz. "So, how many levels?"

Lizbeth had picked herself off the ground and was currently drinking a health potion. She cast a glance at Ezra before opening her menu. "Two. You?"

"I leveled up once." He replied, adding his points to his stats.

Level 12

HP: 2100

Str: 12

Agi: 21

Vit: 18

Ezra closed down the menu and picked up his weapon from the ground where he had left it after he took that hit and slung it on his shoulder. "Come on, we have to get back to the path." He nodded to the white mist that was starting to creep through the trees. One of the properties of the forest is that the map was basically useless, and if they didn't get back to the path before the mist set in they would most likely get lost.

Liz followed behind Ezra in a hurried pace. Shouldn't have thrown all those points into strength! She mentally scolded herself as she struggled to keep up. "Wait up!" She cried out, feeling out of breath already.

Ezra came to a stop thirty yards ahead and turned, watching her as she came to a stop in front of him bending over and struggling for breath. "Th-thanks." Liz panted. "For waiting. And saving me back there." She straitened up, only to have Ezra's halberd shoved in her hand.

"Hold on to that." Ezra told her before he sweeping her up bridal style and took off running. Even though he had increased his strength it was still really hard to carry another human. Especially one that was screaming and swearing at him.

A minute or so later Ezra put Lizbeth down on the stone path, taking a heavy hit in the balls from the pole of his own weapon. "I take back my thanks." Liz huffed, shoving his weapon back into his hands.

"Good." Ezra replied. In truth, he found the idea of her tanking him for saving her life as embarrassing. He was no hero after all, just a friend. Remembering the hit she almost took, he checked her gauge. "HP's coming up fine. Just in case, let's head to town and make some repairs. I'll get you lunch too." The girl just huffed, her face turned away.

What a jerk! Liz thought, her face blushing furiously. To pick me up like that, and then brush it off like it was nothing? I will have my vengeance! She paused for a moment. Wait, he took a hit for me, he carried me like a bride, he's paying attention to my HP, and he's getting me lunch? Does that mean...

As if sensing her thoughts (really he just heard her muttering), Ezra called over his shoulder. "I saved you because I don't want to see one of my only friends die. Besides, you still owe me for the smithing gear and lodging."

"Yup, your definitely a scumbag." Lizbeth said, a smile growing on her face. "So, where we eating?"

"Hopefully somewhere your friendly neighborhood scumbag can afford." Ezra replied, leading the way out of the forest.

Hey guys, it's the author. Have you figured out if Ezra is a nice guy or an asshole yet? How about if he likes Lizbeth or not? No? Good, then I am doing my job right. If you think you know where the story line is going, pm me. If you're close, I might reward you with a glimpse of the future. If not, I'll just tell you you're wrong.

Here's a hint from your friendly neighborhood scumbag- trembling short cake.

Ezra! You've told to much!

I'm just the main character, if you didn't want them to know I wouldn't have been able to say it.

Good point. And why am I talking to you? You shouldn't even know I exist.

Maybe you need some mental help.