10th of January
Jaden's back, and he's much gloomier than usual. Suits me, I still don't understand why he'd go to such lengths for a friend, and I'm surprised he got out of there in time. To be honest, I was really angry the day I teleported away. Angry at myself, and angry at Jaden for making me feel all this. It'd be so much simpler if I hadn't met him. I never got why there were so many girls who dreamt of a tragic romance; if it hurt this much just to have a friend, I didn't even want to think about love.
I went into the dungeon angry and just fought and fought. I must've gotten loads of looks from the other players. I tested out a new sword that I got, it was cheaper because it had a darkness attribute that decreased defense, but it increased attack and I didn't really care that much at the time. I immediately got a new sword skill, slant. It's a one-hit darkness skill. Like a normal slash but around 4-times as powerful as a normal slash. The movement's more complicated than the Sonic serial skills though, so there are always a couple of times where I fail to carry out the skill. That always costs me a chunk of my HP. I'd saved up a bit of money but it was all gone with the purchase of the sword, and I barely had enough for health and vitality potions. I'm pretty ashamed to say that my technique got really wild at the end. Like I just needed something to swing at because I was just angry. Thank you, Jaden.
He came at the end of the second day. He walked up to me and didn't say anything. His eyes and the absence of a friend said it all. We didn't talk, just ordered his room and went back up to them. The next day we went into the dungeon and got a sizable chunk of the map down but neither of us talked to each other. It's what I'd always wanted, so why did I feel like something was missing, like I'd gotten used to Jaden's usual chatter.
Damn, I guess I got attached to him. What a pain. But we still worked well together; me charging in front, and Jaden darting in and out. The enemies were still orcs, but they were bigger and had better armour. I guess there is a limit to the imagination of Akihiko, and they had to do some slight variations on the enemies. They're not as scary anymore, partly because I'm feeling sorry for myself, partly because I'm feeling the bad vibes coming off Jaden.
He finally came out with it this morning. We were in the inn eating breakfast, but he had this serious expression on his face, and he had to make a couple of false starts before he actually started talking.
His friend was the leader of a guild he was in when this whole mess started. They'd practiced a lot, and were pretty good players in another MMO they'd played. They went in ahead of the first batch of clearers, to test the waters. The moment I heard this I could tell where this story was going. Sure enough, Jaden went on to say that they'd gone in pretty deep and were about to head back when the triggered some more mobs. These weren't special or anything, there were just a little more than usual. They went to fight, and one of them got careless and took a serious hit. That distracted everyone and half of them got hit as well. They made to run away but that was a huge mistake and most of them got cut down from behind. The only ones who got away was the leader, and Jaden. He still hated himself for running away and not dying with the rest of his guild.
The leader was guilty and full of self-hatred, excellent candidate for the leader of some crackpot religion, and that was exactly what he became. He was one of the ones who created the whole idea of suiciding and killing everyone else to save them. Jaden didn't say this last bit explicitly, he just looked away and mumbled something. But I could work out what he meant fine.
I still don't know what exactly happened down there those days ago. But after the story I slipped away saying I wanted to see what was in the shops, and went down to Starting City. I asked the Army why the ban on coming to Starting City was up, and they said that there was just some matters that needed to be attended to, and that everything was ¨sorted". With a sinking feeling in my heart, I went back up to Jaden.
A/N: I suspect that some readers might be a little disappointed at the anti-climatic ending to this. I can add more action to the story if you want, if so just post a review. The reason I'm having a lack of action is because I wanted to focus more on the narrator, but I could do that with more action.
Thanks, and enjoy!