Talking

Thinking

It's amazing how anytime I say I'm going to update semi-regularly it crashes and burns. I lost motivation and ended reading Cardcaptor fanfiction for hours. Thanks to the three fellows that reviewed. Always appreciative.

I don't own SAO, but you knew that already.

Chapter IX: Nighttime Thoughts

Somedays I laid in bed and just thought about life lately. It had become a habit lately. Today I wasn't able to help thinking about Lisbeth and I's first meeting. I wasn't entirely sure why. I was always having my mind wander lately, with or without my permission.

I sighed. No offense to the NPC blacksmiths, but I could never have trusted them to enhance my Peerless Edge any higher than the +3 it was at now. +3 was the magic number where NPCs could enhance to without failing, and from my MMO experience the NPCs would probably end up breaking it before it could get any higher than around +6 or so. I wasn't able to afford to lose such a powerful sword. I'd picked it up from the final attack bonus on floor three's boss.

"Is that a Peerless Edge!?" an excited female voice entered my ears. Oh no. She wasn't talking about me was she?

Pink entered my vision. Not just the girl's dress either, which had an white apron over it. Her hair was pink. Even her eyes were a dark shade of pinkish-purple.

"Well is it?" I sweared her eyes were shining.

"Y-yes."

"Do you need it enhanced?" Lisbeth grabbed my free hand with her own hands, "I'll do it for free if you want!"

"Y-you're a blacksmith?" I looked the girl over, "Girls this pretty don't go into blacksmithing even if they play MMOs right?"

the girl in question scowled at me, "Yes, I am a blacksmith, and I happen to very proud of the fact thank you very much."

"A-ah I d-didn't mean anything like that," I started shaking a bit. My nerves were fried, "I'll be going now!" I haven't had to interact with anyone besides boss raids. I can't do this, I can't. Can't this girl just go away!"

I dashed away from the girl, slowly feeling a sense of dread growing.

"Ugh!" the girl shouted angrily behind me "Who rejects a free blacksmith job!? I'll show you I'm more than worth it!"

"Oh no." I looked back to see her chasing me, "YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!"

"Get back here!" I heard her shout, and felt a hand brush the back of my cloak, "Nobody insults my blacksmithing ability and gets away with it!"

"I n-never said anything like that!" I rounded a corner and found myself in a dead end, "Oh no..."

The girl appeared in the front of the alley, panting and red-faced. Gradually she drew closer and closer until our bodies were practically touching. She began to poke me in the chest with a vengeance.

"You. Will. Come. With. Me." She glared at me with a fury, "And. You. Will. Let. Me. Enhance. Your. Sword. For. Free."

"Y-yes ma'am." I was on the verge of passing out from my nerves at this point. A girl in this kind of proximity with me this angry wasn't good for my fragile constitution.

"S-so why are you doing this for free?" I worked up the courage to ask. I felt incredibly small in my wooden chair watching the slim girl hammering away vigorously at my Peerless Edge.

"Reputation." She held up the sword and looked at it briefly, "I'm trying to build it up by working on a variety of weapons. I'd heard about your weapon and how rare it was, and I HAD to get my hands on one. It's +10 now. That's what you wanted right?"

"Y-yeah." I took the sword from her meekly, "I'll be g-going then."

I turned to leave and found that the girl had moved in front of me and was rapidly getting closer.

"What's your deal?" the girl raised an eyebrow at me and cocked her head to the side, "Are you afraid of me or something?"

"Oh n-nothing l-like that I assure y-you m-miss." I stammered, waving my arms in front of me in denial.

"Really." her eyebrow disappeared into her hairline, and she looked at me like I was crazy. She was the crazy one!

"R-really."

"If you say so." She turned around and stomped into the back of her shop.

"Did I do something to make her mad?" I shrugged tiredly and went to leave the room, "It's not like I meant to. She's really weird..."

Suddenly a soft crying filled my ears. Did I make her do that? Oh I'm going to regret what I'm about to do. I headed back into her workroom and walked up to the back room and lightly knocked before cracking open the door and slipping in. As it turned out, this was Lisbeth's bedroom, and the girl in question was staring at me with bleary eyes from her seat on her bed.

"What do you want?" She sniffed, "Come back to tell me how scary I am?"

"I n-nev-"I sighed and shoved my nervousness down as far as I could. It wasn't very far, "L-look. I'm not s-scared of you in particular. Well maybe a little since you chased me across town, but its p-people in general I'm not r-really c-comfortable hanging around. Especially girls."

"Why join a VRMMORPG then?"

"I d-didn't realize it'd be so realistic." I blushed.

"Awwwww." the girl suddenly wrapped her arms around me and giggled, "You're so CUTE when you're embarrased."

I promptly passed out from the blood running to my head.

"To think I'd end up in love with the crazy girl who had obsessively chased me wanting to enhance my weapon. I must be just as crazy as she was that day." I sighed and brushed a strand of Lisbeth's hair behind her ear. "Wonder when I started feeling like this. Probably around the same time I saved her from that massive Hulking Lizard that one day on floor 18

I was out gathering materials for an a quest on floor 22 on floor 18 when I heard a loud female scream. It was coming from...oh no. It was coming from the direction where a high leveled mob spawned. It was a Hulking Drake which was basically as strong as the floor boss that was on floor 15
I rushed off in the direction of the cave where it spawned. I knew where it was from having killed it with Klein and Fūrinkazan a week or two ago. Fūrinkazan and I went after it because the leather it dropped was key to higher tier leather armor. I got it to use for myself, while most of Fūrinkazan just sold it for an absurd amount of Col at the time. I hoped I would get there in time.

A flash of pink alerted me, before a girl plowed into me. Wait a second was this crazy blacksmith girl from a few weeks ago the one who screamed? The massive shape of the Hulking Drake all but confirmed that as it came crashing around the same corner the girl had come running from. It stopped in front if us and roared menacingly.

"L-Listen," I pushed the girl behind me, her health bar was already in the red, "When I t-tell you I want you to run as fast as you can."

The girl nodded and crawled behind me. I stood to face the massive lizard, looking way braver than I felt. I could just run away. I was fast enough to do it. It was what I used to do. For good or for bad, something about the people I'd met in Sword Art Online fired up some stupid sense of bravery inside me. I hadn't really been the same since Klein saved my life. I used to have the mindset that as long as I was fine, to hell with the rest of the players.

"Not anymore though." I summoned my current long sword, a +15 Divine Defender, and spread my feet apart, "I've got to try to protect everyone that I can... Oh geez that sounded cheesy."

"RUN NOW!" I lunged forward and launched into a Sonic Leap, slamming the drake's head into the ground. It seemed barely fazed. Why was I playing hero again? Oh right the cute pink-haired girl I was trying to save. Wait cute? When the hell did I start calling crazy girls that frightened me cute?

The drake threw me off with a mighty roar and intercepted me midair with its claw. I was sent flying into the side of a wall.

"OK that one hurt," I picked myself up off the ground, "I can't imagine how much that'd suck in real life. Come to think of it, I'd probably be a bloody stain on the wall. Okay brain you can stop thinking about that line of thought now."

"Alright ugly." why did I feel the stupid urge to spew insults at things when scared shitless, "Bring it on."

I ducked under its answering claw and triggered a Horizontal sword skill. I drug my sword along its side and skidded to a halt a couple of feet past it. The monster roared in pain, and turned to charge me with its jaw wide open. My eyes widened in terror, and I just barely overcame the system's sluggishness to dive out of the way.

The monster turned quickly in a display of ridiculous agility for something its size, and I was forced to use my next sword skill activating a parry and shoving my sword into its jaw to hold it back. I thanked my lucky stars and garters that its arms were like a T-Rex's or I would have been torn apart already. As it was, my low strength stat was beginning to fail me, and I knew any minute it would tear past my guard.

"Luckily Klein and his guild showed up a few moments later. They were apparently coming back for more leather to sell." I sweat dropped remembering how close it had been to that drake biting my arm off, "Later that day Lisbeth added me to her friends list after thanking me profusely. She insisted on it. I'm glad she did."

Suddenly Lisbeth rolled over very close to me, her leg falling over mine and her hands clutching the side of my nightshirt. She spoke softly in her sleep, "mhfmmm never leave me Aurain... not like daddy."

Even though I knew she probably couldn't hear me in my sleep I replied anyways, "Never Lisbeth. Not if I can help it. Did her dad divorce her mum or something?"

Eh sorry this is a tad short. It's a bit of an interlude chapter.

-Forscythe