Guys I've had an epiphany regarding the plot! You may hate me at the end of the story with the epiphany I had whilst writing this chapter. I've also realized I've been writing this more as a novel and less as a fanfic with story arcs. Is it keeping you guys entertained? Also I've added an official pollon my profile for these questions I'm asking. It's a few clicks and it would mean a lot to me (click on my publisher name at the top and the poll is on the top of it. Alternatively, ~fictologistis the direct link to my profile. You do need an account to do it so if you have one, I will love you forever and ever 3
"I'll be here tomorrow morning" Ganamoto stated as he brought up the menu in preparation for logging off.
"I'll be waiting." I replied radiating confidence.
He nodded and the log out animation started and finished within 3 seconds.
Finally alone, I unequipped my helmet and stretched. "Time to learn combat" I said to myself.
"You aren't going to learn without guns shooting you and how do you suppose you're going to manage that without taking unnecessary risks?" Yui remarked dryly.
"Are there any practice drones or something that you can use as a practice sparring partner in this game within this area?" I asked while rolling my shoulder.
"Of course there is- if you're willing to chance going back into town to purchase them. I don't know how complete the description is of you two, only that there is one. You do have quite a different look with your armor equipped so you may be able to stealth in. There is one alternative however.."
"Hmm. What's the alternative? The town is very big and mostly open from my experience there. I don't think I could stealth through there without being seen. It would most likely be easiest to just casually walk through the town with how big it is and hope to not attract attention but if they have a description like you said they do then that's going to be near impossible." I mused.
"Well, the only other options are having a real person to practice with unless you want to go practice on the mobs outside. Again though, the enemies here are non humanoid and as such aren't shooting guns at you. If you are wanting to practice PvP there's really only those options unless you want to go PK-ing which would probably be the quickest way for both learning and being exposed." she pointed out teasingly.
"Navigate the town for myself then, looks like we're heading back there." I stated.
"No thanks" Yui yawned out.
"Wh-wh-what?" I stuttered out shocked at the aloofness. "Please Yui, there is a lot at stake here and its unlikely I can do it without your help."
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"Yui, are you still there?!" I cried out alarmed.
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"Please open the map of the area and the outskirts" I mentally intoned coming to a realization. Directly after asking a map was projected right in front of me mid air including my present location as well as the surrounding maps.
"To navigate the maps just bring your fingers to the projection and drag in the direction you want it to scroll"a generic voice listed out. "For further assistance on usage, you can consult the buyers manual which is in your inventory or you can think 'Help Commands' for a briefer description on what I can do for you." not Yui said.
I guess the system found her... I hope she's okay... Well, I need to focus on the task at hand. First course of action is to find someone to help me locate those drones since I don't know where or what they are called or find a sparring partner. I could take up PvP as a last resort so this isn't make or break but I need to get this done before he comes back tomorrow. Wasn't Pale Rider going to take up his training?
Shoot.. time is just passing right now. Decide already...
Minako may be a good person to approach, if she's trustworthy. She already knows a lot though which is both a good and a bad thing... I could go into down with this disguise but if I talk to her in it and she's one of them then I'm absolutely screwed... If I go in with no disguise and find her would be ideal but my description is already floating around in town. There's significant risk in that right now.
"Sigh. Thinking like this and not moving is going to get you nowhere. Get a grip." I said aloud to no one in particular.
Crossing the underground cavern I slowly climbed the ladder in trepidation until I reached the top. Pausing to take a deep breath; I grabbed the latch, spun it, then pulled it to open it. The bright light leaking through the opening blinding me, I entered the Outskirts again. As some hair flashed in front of my eyes I entered into panic mode and hurriedly reequipped all armor pieces.
Fortuitously no one was around, probably because there was "nothing good" that this area was close to. Taking a direct route, I pretty much retraced the path I took in run earlier on at a much more casual pace. I was trying to effect the "just getting back from a journey out" body language from a distance. In reality though, I was hyper alert with all my muscles being tensed to move at a moment's notice.
Having time to look around was very eye opening. This whole area appeared to be dystopian as possible with stark contrast to the city. I had already noticed it before but besides the mangy wolves and non-hostile lizard/scorpions there didn't really appear to be anything well, lively. It's a newbie area so it's unlikely anything large and dangerous would be implemented in this area. Or maybe it is, seeing as this game as the reputation as "The Hardest Video Game". The irony at the title that was awarded to GGO was not lost on me. If the media knew more about SAO then I think there would have been a different end to that competition. Then again... I don't know a whole lot about the game so while you can die as much as you like, it may be easier to die overall.
Well crap. One of the groups, 4 people that I see is on a course to intercept me. They weren't close enough to tell what they have equipped. I'm decently close to that hole in a bush I had passed on my way here if I want to stick to my plan of avoidance, but if they find me I have absolutely no escape. If they plan on fighting, well I'll see what the result is. For now just keep walking seemingly oblivious to them to see how the dice will be rolled.
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I've passed that hiding spot, now is the point of no return. One of them has a white gun that's quite large; he's got white hair and looks to be medium size in brown camouflage clothing. Behind and to the left is a cloaked person, I can't make anything out more than that right now. The third was another male with black hair a slight build and a black gun of medium small size. The fourth appeared to be unarmed, or at least wasn't holding weapon in hand. No visible holsters either. Bluish black hair...
Once they were maybe 40 meters away I stopped and turned to face them, abandoning the pretense of ignorance. I unhooked the photon sword from my right side and kept it held in my hand turned off in the case this was a "friendly" visit. Noticing my actions and my confrontational stance, the three with visible weapons stopped at a hand signal from the unarmed one who kept walking towards me. About halfway to me I recognized her as Minako, who I met briefly after my duel with Tomohide and who knew my true identity.
Uneasy I did nothing, letting her approach to 10 steps of me. Not knowing what to say, I waited.
"Hey newbie, I'm trying to track someone, have you seen anyone?" she asked in a friendly tone.
"I've seen lots of people I lied, what's in it for me?" I asked trying to sustain a convenient yawn over that entire sentence. I don't think she can see a yawn but she can probably hear it in my voice although how badly this helmet muffles sound I don't know.
"We have credits you could use to get better armor" she admonished.
"Which I probably couldn't use yet. Why is this important? Who are you looking for? Why?" I asked hurriedly noticing that the three others are approaching slowly.
"Well.. To explain that, I'm a information merchant and I generally go by the alias of The Black Cat, but my name is-"she explained still in that friendly upbeat voice.
"If you're dealing with me in good faith tell the three others to stop approaching and move away or I'm gone." I interrupted warning her.
Looking surprised, she looked over her shoulder she yelled "Guys you are ruining this! Go hunting for a bit, I'll catch up."
Waiting a moment to confirm they followed through, I said "Your name is Minako right?"I asked.
Off balanced she said "Yes that is my name. How did you know?"
"That isn't the information you came here for." I stated quietly avoiding the question.
Taking a deep breath she rattled off "I've been commissioned by others to locate a person by the name of Kirito because of the skill level she demonstrated in a duel earlier today. It's important to me because all the information merchants have been tasked with this and if I find her my reputation will improve in the minds of many. I'm not just doing it for them though, this person I've had the opportunity to come into contact with and it counters many things said about her. I want to help her, and help myself."
"If that's truly the case then wouldn't Kirito be losing a lot? Obviously she doesn't want to be found if everyone is looking for her to no avail so if you go spreading information about her whereabouts... how would that help her?"
"Ugh look. I don't expect you to understand what I'm doing. Just tell me have you seen her?" she said putting her hands on her hips and walking forward a few steps.
Slightly intimidated I take a half step back and say "Yeah I have seen her. She has black hair, a cyber eye, near my height right?"
"How did you know what she looked like?" She articulated precisely, switching voices into what I guess is her business mode. Or interrogator, I'm not sure yet.
"First lets discuss payment" I raised my right hand to stop her words.
She looked at my hand startled and reached over her shoulder in a flash and had a gun pointed at me.
"So you mean to coerce this information from me without payment? I thought we were having a friendly talk" I asked confused and a bit nervous.
"Put away your weapon and I'll put away mine" she stated.
"Wait what? Oh" I belatedly remember the sword in my hand and hook it back on my side. "Are we good now?"
"Perfectly!" she stated lightly doing a little spin of the gun in a smooth motion to rest on her back. "Since you already have stated your reluctance to take credits, what do you want exactly?"
Musing over the circumstance, I wasn't totally sure if this would be a good bargain to do. I could avoid going into a city for the drone(s) but there would guarantee be more information about myself available to a person of an untested reliability. She seems kind though and I don't know if I can do this alone/
"Well... I want 5 practice drones as well as an information trade. That fair?" I suggested
"3 drones and information, limited by the amount you have." She bargained.
"Fine. The reason I know how she looks like is she's been training me for quite some time" I said stating a half truth. I have been training myself for quite some time after all, since SAO started.
"Really." She said deadpan. "She knew very little of this game, how could she be training others?" Smirking a bit, she said "let's find out."
In the half second of being startled she had a gun out and pointed at me again. Even more startling is that my hand in front of me was holding my up to now unused sword still turned off. Really wanting to avoid another revealing fight I try to placate her "So you're going to kill me now without paying? That's terrible form for an information merchant." Lowering my weapon slightly in the hope she's bluffing I continue "I'll make sure everyone knows how you deal with people from now on, in fact I'll make sure your precious reputation will be tarnished."
"You're in the wrong game to be non-confrontational, people will sympathize with me" she said a small smile still toying on her face.
"Don't get me wrong, this isn't about you wanting to kill me. This is about you avoiding payment which is completely separate. If you can't hold up your end of a bargain I think you'll find you have a lot less clientele" I bluffed, not really sure what people would do in that scenario.
She laughed genuinely. "You're slick as ice. Fine we will finish our business transaction and then we will see."
"There's nothing to see yet, I was in the process of getting those drones for a reason" I warned her.
"I see, I see" she said thoughtfully. "What more can you tell me about her?"
"Not much. She's training me but she's quite secretive. Her stats are decently high from what I've witnessed." I paused making sure she was still following. "Now your turn for my questions. Who's asking about her, and do you know why?"
Smirking again, she exclaimed "You've got a crush on her don't you?"Without a pause she continued "None of my business if you do or not. In regards to your question I don't know who sent out the original request. I've sourced it from within the Zaskar organization though, the company that made this game. As to why, I have no clue. There's really no comparison I can draw to in my 8 months of playing professionally. Due to how much work I put into getting that information, the information trade is complete."
"I see, that's more than enough information right now. However, regarding the drones how will you go about providing that to me?"I asked.
"One of the guys I was with I messaged to go and get some, he should be here within 5 minutes or so with them." She replied. "That means we have at least that long to duel. Now put'em up!" Minako ordered.
Putting all my weight on my left leg, I put my left hand in the air in mock surrender and my right hand against my waist, close to where my sword is harnessed. "Sigh, I surrender. You get your wish, very misplaced as it is. Duel?"
"Duel."She acquiesced with a nod. Bringing up her menu she started what I assumed the process was to challenge others to a duel.
Crap crap crap! I wanted to avoid this. If I do something similar as to what I did to Tomohide she's going to have very strong suspicions on my identity. If I don't do anything at all, I doubt she's going to give me the drones. What can I do to not raise suspicion...? I can't use my gun, she'll recognize that instantly so it's down to the sword. There's no way I can get close enough to hit her if it's a rapid fire gun like Tomohide's either. Unless I can deflect it... but to deflect them at that speed though I would need to know where they were going...
"Hey you lagging? Accept the request already!" Minako yelled while running backwards.
The pop up was of course in front of me at chest level just like the majority of the other user interfaces. It didn't say my name on it however which was relieving. It read "Minako has challenged you to an all out duel with a bounty of 5000 credits awarded to the victor. Do you accept?"
"Accepting now!" I yelled back looking at the decent distance she put between me and her. She had run perpendicular to the path; so looking at her the city was on my right and my new home somewhere to the left. Once she reached a distance of maybe 40 meters between me and her she stopped. The counter was already down to 6. There was a boulder to at my 10 o'clock, maybe a quarter of the distance between me and her which I could use as cover or I could go directly at her and hope for the best. I could also increase the distance between me and her and hope that the accuracy is redu-
"Start" said that same NPC voice.
Immediately she let loose with a torrent of bullets that weren't that had a wide spread over myself. Taking a deep breath I threw myself backwards keeping myself horizontal, feet pointed at her. A bullet hit me below my right knee causing me to cringe while the other bullets whizzed around me. Landing roughly on my back, I turn the little remaining momentum into an acrobatic roll to get back to my feet quick to react to further shots.
Unhooking my sword, I looked at her and I could feel my reasoning for holding back slipping away, replaced with a steely determination to win at any cost.
"Aren't you supposed to try and close the distance with that sort of weapon?" She taunted in a bored manner, like this fight was already over.
"You're assuming I even know what weapon this is and how it works"I began.
"Well it's very unlikely-"she began.
Unable to help it, I grin and interrupt "I do."Bursting into a system assisted dash right at her; I kept the sword turned off in my right hand, holding it pointed backwards on my left side. All I needed was her startled for a moment and I had it. A moment later the expected gunshots came, loosely focused like the last burst. 16 bullets, 9 of which are expected to hit me based off the predicative line. Making a split decision based off the trajectories I press the switch on the sword swing it in an upper arc, destroying the one heading for my neck immediately following it up with a forehand strike to get the one aimed at my chest. Meanwhile I took one in my right arm and left thigh before doing a high flip over the rest of the bullets coming. Only 15 more meters I thought.
Minako; eyes kind of gaping, whispered "no way" while standing motionless for a second. Doing a quick maneuver, she had that gun away and a much smaller one she was pulling from a side holster.
Not wanting to give her another chance to hit me (being shot stung a ton) I push off hard on my right foot to send myself into a spinning kick and knock her pistol out of her hands while turning my sword off to avoid stabbing myself.
She looked at my body entering the kick and threw herself forward and under my own body which by this point was already committed and in the air beginning the spin. Hitting the ground facing backwards my toes of my shoes digging gouges as I slide to a stop after about 6 feet and tasting a metallic tang in my mouth I burst into a dash.
Of course, how easily she read my body movement should have been a warning as she grabbed my outstretched arm with the sword in it and flipped me over her body using my momentum against myself.
"Ughh..." I groaned trying to get up off my back as I overhear the cocking of the gun. I was definitely being too cocky about my own skills..
"Not too bad" she said with a devilish smile as she approached. "it's over now though."
Managing to get to a crouch before she stopped about 3 steps away I spat out "Not yet"in defiance while looking at my health surprised that it was still over 50%, I used a tactic I developed in SAO to dash to the boulder jumping over it and take cover.
In other words, I surprised her by glomping her and complimenting her before running like hell. Smooth right?
"How, how dare- Oh you are so dead now" she yelled out losing her composure as I thought I heard a blush entering her voice.
I really didn't want to pull out my gun as she would probably recognize it, but I was starting to see no alternative unless I could end it with words as I crouched against the rock. Taking my first deep breath I smelled the area around me for the first time. It was pungent, but not quite unpleasant as it smelled sort of like cinnamon and something else for some strange reason.
Steeling myself against what was probably going to be a very violent onslaught, I got up and walked around to the left of the boulder with my sword out.
As it does coincide with Christmas and the New Year I decided to do a little post episode special. It may or may not coincide with this story. Enjoy!
Groaning as I got out of bed I was immediately attacked with a hug from behind.
"Wha-What?"I asked, too asleep to react to it.
"Happy Wintermas!" Sugu excitedly said with her legs wrapped around my body so I was supporting both of us.
Blinking several times in a lack of comprehension I manage to stifle a yawn and ask "What?"
"You're silly when you're tired Oniiii-chan" she giggled. "We've been looking forward to this date forever as we get to see everyone at Egil's place!"She went on super enthusiastic, somehow managing to bounce with how she was wrapped around me.
"Oh! I had totally forgotten with how busy I've been. I'm awake now and need to get ready, you don't mind if I ask you to leave?"
"You really forgot?"she asked in horror, wide-eyed while getting off of me.
Rolling my shoulders I turned to face her and put my hand on her shoulder and said softly " Of course not! I know several people who would have my head if I did. Just playing with you"After this I proceeded to mess up her hair as she walked to the door. "By the way where were you hiding?"
Suguha, my sister, looked back at me with a glint in her eyes and a smirk. "Not telling you~"
Pulling up on my motorized bike with Sugu, to Egil's rather nice bar (although I wouldn't tell him that!); I locked it up behind the store and walked to the front in amiable silence with her. Judging by the sound leaking out of the building I mused "wonder who is here already.."Looking over at my little sister, she had a coy smile like she already knew.
"Oh no I've been plotted against" I said in mock exasperation giving her a side hug and opening the door to see something really amazing.
"HAPPY WINTERMAS" everyone exclaimed loudly as Asuna approached.
And so the party went into the wee hours of the morning without a hitch. That is, until Lisbeth slyly asked me loudly in a moment of relative silence "How are you enjoying being a girl?"
Everyone else burst into laughing at the question; and then further into tears at my burning face, as for most it was probably their first time seeing me blush.
Any and all suggestions would be appreciated with the story~ I am getting no feedback =( Should I still do the poll questions? That's my poll question for today. Also, happy new year wherever you be, however and whenever you celebrate it. Hopefully it's with friends and/or family.