The West Mountain is cold. Devilishly cold.

"Achoo!" Lisbeth sneezed, her body trembling from the cold. "It's freezing out here!"

"Don't you have any spare clothes?" I asked.

"I didn't know it's going to be this cold! And it's not like I spend a lot of time out of my shop, anyway."

Heh, she's so hopeless.

I brought out one of my spare jackets in my inventory to give it to her, but when I turned back. Tetsuo already put his extra jacket on her.

"Here, this will keep you warm." He said kindly. That familiar smile is now back on his face.

"T-thanks!" Lisbeth smiled. She even blushed a little.

Tetsuo pat gently on Lisbeth's head in response, but when he caught a glimpse of me looking at them, his smile immediately faded. He shot a look at me that's practically asking Why the hell are you looking?

Damn it, I hate that guy.

"So, how far away is the place, Lisbeth-san?" Sachi asked.

"I don't really know, either. It's actually the first time I've been here, too. But the dragon boss that dropped the rare crystal lives at the top of the mountain, so I guess it's not very far now." Lisbeth explained. "Also, you can call me Liz, Sachi-san. I don't mind it!"

"You're so kind, Liz!" Sachi smiled happily. Suddenly, the air around me seems to get much warmer.

Feels so good to see her smiles like that.

Around half an hour later, we finally arrived at the top of the mountain.

There's a large field of crystals here. No sign of any dragon yet, though.

"It's so beautiful!" Sachi and Lisbeth exclaimed simultaneously, admiring their clear reflections in the crystals.

Have to admit, it's a very breathtaking sight here.

But we're not here for sightseeing.

"Be on your guard, people. Keep your teleport crystal ready." I told the group, before climbing onto one of the crystal formation to look around.

"Pfft, who does he think he is, bossing us around like that?" Tetsuo whispered to Lisbeth. I just tried to ignore him.

"Now, when the dragon comes out, I want everyone to go hide behind those crystals. I don't want to risk you guys' lives." I said.

"Wait a second! Who are you to decide that!" Lisbeth shouted. "You really think you can take down a freaking dragon by yourself? Especially when you don't have your best sword?!"

"Then it's my problem. My problem only. I just don't want you to be in any danger because of it. After I killed the dragon, then you can take care of the rest."

"But we followed you here to help you deal with the dragon, Kirito! Don't leave us out of this!" Keita protested. "Let us help! I promise I wouldn't let anyone here be in any danger."

"Just ignore him, Keita. That guy never listens to anyone." Tetsuo spoke, before leaving the group and walk toward the large crystal formation ahead.

"Enough, Tetsuo. Don't do anything stupid!" Keita said.

"Stupid?!" Tetsuo turned back, his voice full of anger. "Taking that Beater with us is stupid!"

He shouted so loud, his voice echoed throughout the crystal field.

Or maybe…it wasn't his voice that did that.

A nightmarish cry screamed out of the large crystal formation behind Tetsuo, before breaking away completely, revealing a huge white dragon behind.

X'rphan the White Wyrm is its name.

"IT'S THERE!" Keita shouted. "Tetsuo, get back! Izumi, Sachi, get into positions!"

Tetsuo tried to run away, but the dragon fires its icy breath at him. I had to push him out of the way, before barely blocking the attack with my new sword I got from Izumi.

The new sword absorbed the ice breath completely. It's probably because of my ridiculously high level, or the new sword has a high defense stat against ice attacks.

If it is the latter, then Izumi, I thank you with all my heart.

"Keita, you and the others help me flank the thing. I'll gain his attention!" I ordered, before jumping up the dragon's right leg and slice off his body scale.

Despite having quite tough body scale, my attacks can still do some heavy damage against it.

Shouldn't be a problem at this rate.

Keita and his friends know their jobs. Sachi knows she's not strong enough to help fighting the dragon yet, so she stayed behind protecting Lisbeth in the crystal shadows. Izumi flanked the dragon's left side, Keita and Tetsuo on the right, while I dragged his attention on me.

Everything is going just fine…until…

"Hey! It's almost down now! Let's get this over with!" Lisbeth spoke excitingly, before running out of the cover.

Damn it, what is she thinking!?

The dragon seems to notice her, too. Its red eyes stared fixed on Lisbeth, before it flew backwards.

Oh, hell.

"Everyone, out of the way, NOW!" I shouted.

The dragon then spread its enormous wings before flapping them hard, and a strong wind blew toward Lisbeth's direction.

"Whaaaa! HELP!" Lisbeth screamed as her got blew away by the wind.

"Watch out!" Tetsuo ran after her, but he didn't notice that the attack caused a blizzard just behind him.

Goddammit, this is not working at all!

I flew after them. (Okay, not really flew, just jumped from crystal to crystal ninja-style) But the blizzard already swept both Tetsuo and Lisbeth towards a large hole ahead of them.

"I'm coming!"

Just as they both fell into the hole, I jumped in after them.

I just realized that this is probably my worst idea ever since I came into this hellhole game after seeing how deep the freaking hole is.

But I have no choice.

"Tetsuo! Lisbeth! Grab my hand!" I reached both of my arms out toward each of them, and they both grabbed me. We held each other close as we fell into the abyss…

"…Ugh…looks like we're still alive…" I heard my voice mumbled. At least I think it is my voice.

Arrgg, my body is pained as hell.

"Take it easy, Kirito-san. You've been out for quite a long while." I heard Lisbeth spoke.

I slowly sat up. My HP bar's drained to about one-thirds of the bar. After glancing around the area, I saw that we've been trapped inside a hole with no way out but up above.

Lisbeth sat beside me. Tetsuo stood behind her.

"The others are okay." Tetsuo said. "Keita said they hid from the dragon ever since we three got blew into this hole. The dragon's away for now. He said he'll try to find a way to get us up."

"That's good to hear…" I spoke weakly, before drinking some potion bottle to restore the HP. "How are you two holding up?"

"Better than you, apparently. You've been out for hours." Tetsuo snarkily said. "Now, I guess you might know how we can all get out of here, Mr. Beater."

"I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear any of that, Tetsuo." I said, trying to contain the anger in my voice. If he's gonna continue to mess with my head like this, maybe I'll have to teach him a lesson.

I slowly got up, balancing my stance, before taking some steps back and running up the wall.

I know, it sounds crazy. But if you're a fast-hitting Beater like me, chances are you gotta be very agile in combat. That skill can also be use in mundane things like this.

Still, it didn't get me to where I wanted anyway. I fell down halfway to the top, and crash-landed in the snow below.

"Cool show, Beater." I heard Tetsuo said.

I tried using the teleportation crystal, but it didn't work. Looks like this place is an anti-crystal area.

"Trapped in an anti-crystal area again. This marked yet another time you brought us into your trouble, Kirito, and frankly, I'm getting real tired of it." Tetsuo gave me a death glare.

That's it. End of the line. The final straw.

"What the heck is your problem, Tetsuo!?" I quickly got up then grabbed Tetsuo by the collar. "Why do you hate me so much!?"

"Is this about Ducker?!"

Tetsuo responded by punching me in the face.

"Don't you dare talk about him! This isn't about him! This is about you and all the misery you have brought to my friends!"

"…cough…What the hell are you talking about?...cough..."

"Ever since you're here, our guild's facing nothing but bad news!" Tetsuo shouted again. "The bloody guild war, those beast hackers, and now this! We're better off without you and your weird friends!"

"You're just blaming it all on me!" I argued. "It wasn't my choice to come along with you guys! And I had nothing to do with the guild war!"

"You always have a choice to leave! But you're still here! Why do you have to be here with us!? YOU DON'T BELONG HERE!"

Fuck him.

I tackled him into the wall, and we started brawling.

"Hey, both of you, stop already! This isn't helping anything!" Lisbeth shouted hopelessly behind us, but she could only stand there and watch us fighting each other.

Two fists from Tetsuo into my chest, I launched two of my own into his face.

He responded by kicking me down, I pulled him down with me.

"You're a bloody virus. Always taking advantage of others…Tried to bring us down to your level!"

All his nonsenses made me wanna puke.

"Why don't you just DIE!"

He launched another fist at me, I successfully dodged it.

But the fist hit Lisbeth instead…

"Ahhhhh!" Lisbeth groaned in pain, she fell down.

"Lisbeth!" I cried out, running over to check her.

"I…I…I'm alright…" Lisbeth panted. She held her hand at her chest where she got punched.

I glanced back at Tetsuo, wanting to give him another well-deserved beatdown.

But Tetsuo's face was blank.

"W-what have I done?" He mumbled. "What did I do?"

His mouth opened wide in shock, as were his eyes.

I approached him slowly, but he quickly stepped away from me.

"N-no! Get away from me! I'm sorry!"

"Tetsuo, what the hell is wrong with you!?"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do it!"

Honestly, I think that guy had lost it already.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry…"

"What the hell are you saying sorry for?!" I asked, finally cornered him at the wall.

Tetsuo's eyes weren't on me. He was staring straight at Lisbeth, who's sitting at the other side.

"I'm sorry….I'm sorry that I pushed you down, Ducker…"

A/N: First of all, I must say thank you to each and every readers that have read my story and continue to follow it for so long, and I must say that I'm terribly sorry that I might let some of you down because of the long absence. I haven't updated any of my story since last year, and I must admit that it is because I lost interests in continuing it back then. I don't know what came over me lately, but I seem to have lost all interest in anime and writing fics/novels altogether. I mean, I have all the ideas plotted out already, but I just can't seem to finish writing them. I just either quitted partway or decided to scrap it all. Maybe it's also because I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to write the story like I wanted it because of my limited English skill, or maybe because I'm just too lazy to write. From now on, I planned to just continue working on this story as soon as I'm able to write anything more. But rest assured that I WILL NOT ABANDON it. In fact, I'll be finishing up the next chapter as quick as possible because I want to tie up the cliffhanger that I left in this chapter's ending. LOL

And yes, I wrote Tetsuo to be an asshole in this chapter, but the next chapter will explain why he acted like that in the first place, as well as tying up Tetsuo and Lisbeth's personal 'alternate' arcs.

Thank you again everyone for reading!