The Martial Arts Quest

I awaken to a loud persistent banging, coming from the direction of the door. After the event with Saya last night, I had gotten back to my room in the inn that I was currently staying at and practically crashed.

'Maybe it will go away if I ignore it,' I think to myself as I roll over in bed. This however was not the case as banging only gets louder and more persistent.

"Mizore it me Saya." A voice comes from the other side of the door. What time was it? Why was she here so early? Still it seems like she would just keep banging until I got up. I got up and groggily shuffled to the door. I open to see Saya standing there in her full set of armor with a katana hanging from her waist.

"Good morning, Milady, did you sleep well?"

" Well yes, until you wake me up that is," I reply.

" I'm sorry Milady, I didn't mean to wake you. I just thought that if we're gonna stop pkers then, we must become as strong as possible. So I was coming to get you so we could go train together."

She was right if I ever hoped to stop pkers, We would need to be strong. Strong enough to defend and protect the innocent players from those who would kill and take advantage of them.

"Okay let me get ready, meet you in the lobby." I say.

"Okay see you in a few my lady." She turns and heads to the lobby. I shut the door and headed to my bed. I sit down, pull up my main menu. I go to the equipment tab and put on my robe. I then equip my scythe and head down to the lobby.

"So, Saya, where do you want to go to train?" I ask as I come down the stairs.

"Let's go explore the dungeon." Saya says.

"The dungeon? You really want to explore the dungeon, why?" She just looks at me and smiles.

"Cause it will be fun." I let out a small sigh.

" Fine, let's go." I say as I walk to the door. I step outside and see the view of the mountains. I admire the view for the first time since the death game started, it's a breathtaking site that could easily make one forget this is a game.

"Okay Saya, let's go to the dungeon." We went to the dungeon building that towers over the floor.

FL 2, dungeon 11:20

"So this is the floor dungeon, it looks like a cave." Saya says. I look around and see some monsters. They were giant bugs, known as Windwasps. They weren't necessarily very deadly. All they really had was a bite attack and a Sting Attack that caused stunning for 3 seconds. They weren't very fast, but in large groups they could be a bit annoying.

"Shhh, Saya, look ahead." I point to the giant wasps ."Let's see if we can catch them by surprise." I draw my scythe, and Saya draws her katana.

I run up and slice the bee in the back. Then it turns to me and opens its mandibles, lunging at me. I block its bite with the handle of my Scythe. I put all my weight into pushing it, which causes it to fly back a bit. I quickly shift my Scythe and rip it out of the sky. As I pull it shatters like glass and disappears.

I look over and see Saya finishing off one. A loud buzzing is heard in the distance, I turn to the sound of said buzzing to see about ten more windwasps flying towards us. "Saya get ready cause here comes more!"

When they get closer, I get dive bombed by two of them. I quickly try to dodge out of the way, narrowly dodging the first one. The second hits me however, before being cut down by Saya. "Careful Milady, don't go dying on me so soon!"

After that we make quick work of the wandwasps. "So Saya, what level are you now?" I ask.

"6, what about you?" She asks back.

"8" I reply, giving her a thumbs up as she smiles.

"Nice Milady, '' she says as she sheaths her sword. " But can we get something to eat? I'm starving."

I nod pulling out my teleport crystal, "let's head back to Urbus, I know a decent place to eat!

Urbus, 16:34

The city of Urbus was directly in the middle of Floor 2. The town has been built into a giant crater that looked like it was caused by a meteorite thousands of years ago. Some of the buildings had even been carved out of rocks. This was the case with the restaurant that I was going to, it had a clever name to the Rocstaurant.

"Table for two please!" I say walking in and talking to the host.

"Of course, ma'am right this way." She leads Saya and myself over to the table. After she seats us a waitress comes to our table not even thirty seconds later.

She was wearing a yellow dress that looked very much like clothes you would find a Tavern maid wearing in medieval times. "Hello welcome to the Rocstaurant, my name is Liliana and I will be your server today. Can I start you of with something to drink?"

I look over my menu's drink section, it has everything from water and soft drinks, hot beverages like coffee and tea, and even drinks I would have never been able to drink in the real world.

"I will have the strawberry lemonade, " Saya says, putting down her menu as the waitress writes down on her notepad.

I look down at the menu, specifically carefully scanning it over until a drink catches my eye. " juniper berry Mead please." The waitress quickly wrote that down before walking away.

"Milady, that is alcohol, we are not old enough to drink."

"Maybe not in the real world, but this is a virtual world. We are adventurers that makes us of legal age."

"But still, don't make a habit of it IRL. "

I look back down at the menu as I say, "Yes mother! " Putting extra emphasis on mother to make it sound sarcastic as she gives me a slightly annoyed look.

It's about this time that the waitress comes back with our drinks." One strawberry lemonade, "she says, putting in a glass of pink liquid in front of Saya, " and one Juniper berry Mead.

I take a small sip of the mead, it had a sort of smooth feel to it. The flavor is slightly bitter with a bit of a berry aftertaste. Overall though the flavor was good. " Are you ready to order?" The waitress asks.

"Roast chicken raman, " Saya says as the waitress writes on her notepad.

"And for you ma'am?"

I look down at the menu once more, and finally decide what I want. "I will have the spicy shrimp raman. "

the waitress quickly writes that down and leaves as Saya asks,"So Milady, are we going to form a guild or something? Because as far as I know I haven't seen a guild system yet."

"I'm sure there is a guild system, it's probably tied to a quest that we haven't found yet. I have a contact that might be able to tell me if there's a quest for it."

"A contact?"

"Yes, she was the first person I met on day one and since then she has been helping me. She was from beta, but despite that she's a good person. She kind of became an information broker when we all got trapped."

"I see, well on a different note, what will we call our guild when we create it?"

"Shinigami!"

"Death God? I guess it's kind of appropriate considering the motto we came up with last night."

"Hold on Saya before I forget, I'm going to message Argo." I pull up my menu and quickly type a message.

"Argo? I take it, that's your contact's name?" Saya asks after hearing the name.

"Yes," I reply as the waitress brings our food to the table. I look down at the bowl of raman in front of me and take a small bite. The flavor was insanely good, the perfect balance of spice. The taste alone made it hard to believe that this food was virtual.

The rest of lunch goes off relatively silent as we both quietly eat our food. The silence however is broken, at least for me when a dinging sound is heard. I look up at my health bar which could always be seen if you just looked up slightly. Next to it was a small little envelope icon with a number one written on it, Argo had messaged me back.

I swiftly pull up my menu, and scroll down to the messages section. Opening up the message it read, "Of course Mizore! In the beta guilds were started by a quest in the city of floor 3.

P.S. I found a Quest from the beta, it took me a bit but I found it. I thought you might be interested! If you are, meet me at the southern gate of Urbus tonight at 8 pm. "

[00000000000000000000000000000]

I arrive around five minutes to 8 to find Argo already waiting. She looks over to Saya who had come with me. "Who's your friend?"

"I'm Saya!" Saya replies with a smile. "It's nice to meet you, Argo."

Argo nods, "yes, it's nice to meet you too. "

She leans over to me and whispers," does she know my secret and can she be trusted?"

"Yes!"

"Ok, then follow me you two!" Argo says as she walks into the forest towards mountains.

"So Argo where are we going?" I ask as I follow her.

"To the top of the mountain, there's a quest up there. I think you should take it."

"What quest?"

"The martial arts quest, it gives you access to a number of weapons that you normally couldn't get without it. Including the throwing picks which could be useful to you. Because let's face it , your scythe is cool, but without any substantial way to defend yourself in extremely close combat you might die."

"And the throwing picks might help?"

"Yes, while normally they do little to no damage against players, this can be changed with a simple poison or paralysis potion. In the beta the highest level player was level 15. Normally they only do two points of damage to players. You can get them to do more. He got them to do a total of 30 damage per second to a player. 25 poison damage, with a level 50 Alchemy skill, on top of five piercing damage for being skilled with the weapon itself."

"Wow that actually might be useful, what do I need to do for this skill?"

"You need to shatter a rock!"

"That sounds simple enough!"

"It's a lot harder than you think, in the beta I never managed to do it. However know that if you start the quest, but aren't able to do it you will permanently have whisker marks like I do. "

"Is that why you have whisker marks? Did you try and fail this quest again?"

Argo shakes her head as she replies," No I didn't. I failed it in the beta but managed to do it in the actual game. However during the beta the whisker marks kind of became my trademark, so now I just paint them on."

As we climb up the mountain we meet some resistance from some Windwasps, a few Storm Hornets, and a Trembling Ox. But with the three of us working together we make quick work of them. When we finally reach the top, in front of us is a small shack.

"There it is!" Argo says pointing to the shack." That is the home of an NPC named Ran-Mao, she's the one that gives you the quest to acquire the martial arts skill."

"Argo-san!" A soft feminine voice comes!" You're back!"

The voice belonged to a young woman who looked of Chinese origin. She has large golden eyes and long jet-black hair, with her bangs framing face. Her hair is arranged in thin braids and twin buns shaped like cat ears, a golden tassel hangs from the left bang and above that is a pink rose.

She is dressed in a short lavender and black cheongsam, which is adorned with dark pink petals, with a dark blue cropped jacket over it. She also wears thick black stockings, black shoes, and gold anklets with bells.

"Yes and I brought friends."

"Good fresh challengers."

That's it for chapter 2. Plz rate, comment and review.

If you have any questions about the story or ideas for floors. Please pm them to me. If I use your idea, I will give you credit for it.