Hey guys, whoever's still here. If you're reading this, don't worry, I'm not dead. I got Covid but made it out alive. After that, life just continued on, with me taking on more internships that lasted almost 2 years, so that's mainly why there has not been any updates. It sucks not being a kid anymore, really. My big apologies for seemingly abandoning this, but I'm still around, and finally had some time to do the next chapter. Since this is my last semester, thus lighter course load, I should have some time to get back to continuing this story, and after graduation I should have a lot more free time than my heavy dual major I am taking right now. I will also reiterate my commitment to following this journey to the very end with my characters.

For any newcomers, welcome and hope you'll enjoy the story, and any criticism/review is welcome. For old followers, welcome back, I hope I'm still delivering. Enjoy the new chapter! It's more filler, but hope that's enough.

Additionally, I may end up rewriting some of my old chapters after the story officially or almost come to a close, as there are inconsistencies/annoyances with character portrayals, some real life aspects of his arts majors, and some of the timeline with Yuuki's birthday (it should've passed by now), but on the whole I am happy with my OC's character development throughout the chapters, and the major events should remain unchanged. But that's a thing for the future!

Chapter 16: New Friends

"Gah!" I heard Florence gasping as she almost fell down yet another ledge, only saved by my quick response to catch her hand and help her back up. I usually would say be careful, but this was getting silly.

"This dungeon design sucks." I grumbled. "I mean what is this? No monsters, no vision, no nothing. I'm getting bored."

"We've been walking for 15 minutes now, I think we're close." Florence reassured me. "Pina seems to be growing restless."

I looked over to my right and I could visibly see his legs stood straight on my shoulder, both his wings were half-spread, twitching a little, not in pain from that injury but with agitation, as he was staring forward, as if a prey was nearby. Or an enemy. Soon, I could hear growls coming from him too. Something must be very close by…

I closely monitored Pina's behavior. He continued to look forward, then slightly, as we continued walking, he looked a little off the forward direction. As we continued a few more steps, he turned a little more. It got progressively quicker until we reached a tree. It was conspicuously on the side of the road, and the path just curved around it. It seemed to be the thing that Pina was looking and growling straight at.

"Hmm, this is what's been making him restless." I said, pointing towards the tree.

"It seems normal though?" Florence replied as she got closer to have a look. It was all fine and dandy until she touched the tree bark…

The tree suddenly and quickly swelled up like a balloon, the branches and bark making creaking noises as it was stretched to its absolute limit. It then exploded, before we were able to respond, dealing quite a bit of damage to both of us, as well as covering us with many roach-like creatures…with claws of a termite.

"The fuck is this?!" I yelled, as I felt those claws digging onto me. Each time they sank into my skin, a tiny sliver of my health went down. But the actual danger of these wasn't the direct attacks, but they were apparently poisonous. Every second were more slivers of my health going down. Tiny as it might seem, it added up.

"Gahhh! It's in my hair!" I heard Florence crying out as well, but I couldn't help her. It was on my head too. I grabbed as many as possible on my face and threw them down on the ground. My arms and legs shook so hard I felt them flying off me.

Those fanged roaches didn't even stop there after being thrown. They tried climbing onto me again. I violently kicked my legs and ran around to gain some distance from them, but they were fast to catch up. Who the hell thought up of this?!

Pina, who took off from the shock of the explosion, also was hit with the roaches, but he shook off the roaches much easier than the both of us. Plus, he was also flying, so they couldn't reach him. He roared and glowed before bubbles formed in his mouth. Once big enough, he sent it towards the encroaching cockroaches, around four or five times so. The bubbles pop right above the group, stopping them in their tracks. It seemed to have stunned them. Here's a chance!

I quickly unsheathed my grass saber and began swinging wildly at them, killing two or three at the same time. Wasn't much to its swelling numbers of probably twenty times that size, but I didn't care. I wanted them dead.

"Satsuki! Pina stuns them, kill them when they are!" I yelled out to Florence, whether she heard me or not. I just kept on swinging.

"You little fucking shits…"

I suddenly heard very explicit words coming from a very unexpected source. I barely turned around to see Florence with her bows drawn. The arrow that she was holding had a small spherical behind the tip. It only just dawned on me what the heck she had there before she loosed it.

BOOM!

It was an explosive arrow!

BOOM!

And it vaporized a roach cluster instantly. Each explosion was at least the size of a small wolf.

BOOM!

She stashed a few more on her hand to prepare and loosed them repeatedly at whatever cluster she could find, or whatever she thought was a cluster.

BOOM!

She didn't stop until everything that moves except me and her were dead.

BOOM!

"That's enough!" I swung my sword up and down, running towards her. When the smoke cleared, she still had another explosive arrow drawn, with murderous intent dripping from her eyes. I was scared for a second there that she might shoot me, but upon realizing the carnage she had caused, she lowered her bow and took a breather.

"What the hell was that?" I walked up right next to Florence.

"…I just hate roaches, ok." She replied after a moment. "I hate them a lot."

"To use all of those explosive arrows?" I asked, still quite shocked from the extent she was willing to kill those things. As far as I remember, while the materials weren't too hard to get, they were stupidly expensive, and usually meant for large scale boss battles rather than a bunch of insect infestations.

"It just hits all my trauma buttons, so I don't even care about the grind. I want them DEAD." She flatly stated. Jesus…

"Ok…" When I thought I already knew everything about this girl, time and time again I was proven wrong. "Here, have some milk. Gets rid of the poison." I tossed her a milk bottle item before I had one myself.

"Thank you, Hirano-kun." Florence replied, her voice returned to normal, before she consumed the item. Her health bar, which was visibly getting lower, stopped moving after the consumption, and the poison status icon was gone. After all that fiasco, we actually lost over one third of our health pool, with mine almost hitting half due to my low max health. Thankfully, Pina was there with us and with a flap of his glowing wings and a bit of sparkles, our health bumped a little.

"Good boy Pina!" I petted the little blue dragon as she landed on me. To his excitement, he nudged his head further onto my palms, demanding more. What an adorable little creature.

"We're finally encountering monsters in this quest. At least that means we're on the right track." Florence remarked. "Technically monsters, despite them being more of a booby trap." She rolled her eyes in disgust.

"Good to know." I replied, pointing at Pina. "Now that we are aware of these disgusting roach-infested creeper trees, I think we can ask Pina to identify them for us." The dragon flapped his wings, as if to say 'I'm ready for that task!'

"Great idea!" Florence said. "I'm sure you'll do a great job." She leaned to pet the dragon herself too. "Let's go."

Pina proved to be an invaluable tool. The road down the line was littered with these 'creeper trees' and Pina was there to detect them all and we managed to slip by them easily. There were other tree monsters down the line, but they weren't as dangerous, with their only threat being that they appear close to the creeper trees and could push us into detonating them. We made sure that didn't happen.

At one point, the dragon was once again agitated, but with no growling this time. I heard footsteps coming at us at the same time.

"PINA!" A high-pitched scream echoed throughout the forest. Running through the mist was a girl in blue robe with light brown twin-tails, dark red eyes and the signature Cait Sith ears. Pina took off from my shoulders and collapsed into the girl in a tight embrace.

"You worried me Pina! Don't run away like that ever again!" The girl yelped, the dragon rubbing his head deeper into her.

"See, I'd told you he'd be fine." Another voice came from the mist, and it soon turned out to be a pink-haired girl in red and white. She had a small round shield and a mace with her. "It's not even that long."

"You know what happened last time." The Cait Sith sulked. "You'd understand if you have a pet too."

"No thank you." The Salamander, I think, replied with a raised palm. "I don't wanna repeat of Botaan. Never again!"

"That's a little unfair to Mr. Botaan. She's a wild boar, it takes steps. You're a Leprechaun too, you don't get the bonus to animal taming." Another player in their group also stepped into vision, an obvious Sylph this time. Blonde, tall, green eyes. The last to appear, but the first one to notice our presence. "Oh hello. Sorry if we're in your way, go ahead." She thought we were just bystanders, so she took a sidestep, opening a path for us.

"Oh no no, it's fine, you aren't in the way." I waved my hand and explained. "We were looking for you guys actually. Pina ran…or rather flew into us earlier. He looked pretty distressed."

"Oh, he flew off in the middle of our battle. He must have thought we were in peril, so he looked for help." The Cait Sith replied. "I hope he didn't cause any trouble for you…"

"Oh no he was an amazing little helper!" To the contrary, I had nothing but praise for the little dude.

"He helped us through those nasty trees." Florence joined in our conversation with a smile. Pina barked happily in response to both of us.

"Anyway, it's nice to finally meet you all." I said, extending a hand for the smaller girl. "You must be Silica."

"Yes, I am!" She nodded and took my handshake enthusiastically.

"I'm Hirano." I said, turning to my friend next to me. "And this is my friend."

"I'm Florence." Florence said tersely but with a bright smile.

"Lisbeth here." The pink-haired girl continued the greetings, taking my handshake with a firm grip.

"I'm Leafa. Nice to meet you." And finally, the Sylph girl. Leafa, that sounds quite familiar.

"Leafa-san, weren't you the last season winner of the Sylph fighting tournament?" I asked, tapping my head a couple of times.

"Oh yes I am!" Leafa replied, her tone took up and flashed a smile in response. "Were you there that season?"

"Yeah, I was, only in the semifinals though." I replied.

"…Oh, I remember you!" Leafa raised a finger. "You're the guy who beat up my friend, Recon, in the quarterfinals. Do you remember him? The player with the green bowl cut?"

The way she put it was a little bit…guilt-trippy, but I was fairly sure she didn't mean that. "Oh him! Ah…I still feel bad about that match." I shook my head. "I'll be honest, he had the upper hand the entire time, until flight was allowed."

The Sylph's game format is a fifteen-minute duel between the two contestants in a confined arena, with the first six minutes ground dueling, with only weapons allowed for the first two minutes, then magic and potions get added into the mix. After the six-minute marker flights would be allowed. Recon was the better player in most regards. His poison was scary, his dagger skill was equal to mine with the sword (at the time at least), his darkness spell was stupidly annoying. But my guy sucked at air combat, while I had a handful of experience with it, and it went downhill REAL fast…

"Eh, I wouldn't feel bad if I were you." Leafa scoffed. "A good wake-up call for him to learn how to fly properly."

"Haha." I laughed. "Wow, small world, eh? Anyway, I assume you all are aiming for that spell. How is it going?"

"We fought the boss, but it was a little beyond us." Lisbeth said. "We got out of the arena in time, but we're out of consumables now."

"Oh, that's not great." I exclaimed. "You need a helping hand? I think we have some consumables to spare?"

I turned to Florence just in case, not really for the inventory check, but since it was her who asked me to help her today, it would be quite rude if I didn't run this through her. Her eyes widened, but she quickly gave her approval.

"You didn't have to, Hirano-san." Leafa held up her hands, looking surprised.

"It's fine." I brushed it off. "You guys want the spell, right? Us too! There are more than enough rooms in the party for all of us. So why not join us?"

"Ah, I-uh-we…" All three girls looked flustered. Florence though, didn't really have the same response, looking at me with amusement more than anything. She knew their feelings well enough.

"I know I know." I giggled heartily. "Don't think about it too much. I'm here for some fun with friends. Those consumables aren't worth you guys being left out."

"…That's so thoughtful, thank you Hirano-san!" Silica gave me a bow, a bright smile on her face. I gave her a nod in response, and a glance at Lisbeth and Leafa, both equally happy at the offer. That much was enough satisfaction already, regardless of the outcome of this boss fight.

As soon as they joined my party (thank you game for the party merge function), their HP values showed up. They were all higher than me naturally. Even Silica, whose Cait Sith race were known for their low health pool, was still quite beefier than I was.

"Wow, you're really living on the edge there with that much HP, Hirano-san." Lisbeth commented.

"Oh, I don't just live there, I jump off it from time to time." I quipped, myself aware of its morbidity given my circumstances. "I just need to dodge everything, easy."

"What do you guys need?" Florence, who had been quiet for the last few minutes, finally spoke up.

"We had at least seven tier 3 health potions." Silica said. "I needed six tier 3 mana potions, but it's fine if you don't have them."

"Done." Florence dragged the required items to Silica's inventory, as well as the HP potions for the other two.

"I'll have two tier 3 mana potions please Florence-san." It was Lisbeth's turn, and Florence simply gave them out as requested.

"I-I'll be ok with my natural regen, thank you." Leafa declined, but Florence simply dragged one into her inventory anyway, with the look of 'you'll take it no matter what'. The ladies also asked for some miscellaneous items like milk for poison, stun resistance, something Florence simply just gave out nonchalantly like it was candies. Even I was surprised at how much she had stocked up just with a few weeks of play, but what's new at this point.

"Oh yeah, before we go in, what's the boss like?" I asked the three of them. Leafa was the first to answer.

"It's a large deer." She said. That's new at least. "It can summon tree branches to trap you though, so be careful, especially with your low HP."

"Oh god, more entanglement?" I rolled my eyes. "But fine, thank you. I guess I will be doing the no-stopping challenge here, no?"

All four girls chuckled as we headed into the boss room. It was more of a forest clearing than the conventional boss room, but it was just as spacious. While the three new ladies began combat position quite fast, it took me a bit to identify the deer. It was not an actual deer, but a collection of fragmented tree barks that was bound together by magic power. Once the game recognized the five entities in the boss room, the deer began to glow as mana flowed through its vein in a blue and yellow scheme, with the only exception being the eyes which shined white.

As it stood up, three health bars and its name were declared.

Abundat Cervidae

Its immediate action was to stand up on its two back legs and slammed its two front ones down, causing a massive shockwave to its vicinity. The three ladies stood further from its blast radius though, and I thankfully followed their lead, avoiding an instant KO or an HP potion used.

"Alright, you two. It has no weakness, so just attack it normally. It will do that slam attack each time a health bar is drained." Leafa briefed the two of us, to which we both gave thumbs up and battle readied, me dashing forward while my archer partner stayed at a distance.

I quickly closed the distance gap with the deer within seconds and, as per usual, grinded my feet onto the ground bringing me to a stop just in strike range. I swung my blade onto the deer's neck, hitting the thick tree bark at first but found its way onto the flesh, the flowing mana, some mystical energy bursting out where I struck. The decreasing health bar registered the damage. Bringing my blade out, I sent two follow-up stabs into the same wound before the deer retaliated. Its head twisted in my direction then bent down with the body to build up momentum for a powerful upward swing with the horn. I jumped away from it before it even got close to dangerous.

A few arrows flew straight into the deer as it recovered from its attack, then appeared Leafa to take over my role. Two swings back-to-back were all she could squeeze into before the boss's attention shifted to her and she had to back off. I quickly charged back into the boss and delivered a slice to its torso, without losing speed. It was not meant to do any damage, but rather redirect the deer's attention back to me.

The deer burst into a sprint with its head low, the horns locked onto my small avatar, very well indicated by the red circle status effect above my username. I made a series of, what I would call, playful maneuvers, aiming to test the deer's agility. First, I made a sudden and sharp left turn. The deer sped past where I had been a second ago, took a second to register my new position and turned around for another charge. With a bit of showing off, I sidestepped its reckless move, adding my bit of insurance policy to make sure its undivided love.

It seemed quite animalistic and had quite a bad reaction time. But Leafa did mention it could entangle players with tree branches. There was a good reason for that mechanic.

"Oh crap…"

It decided to use it on me, swinging its head upward as its eyes glowed. Branches shot off from the ground and attempted to wrap around my legs. I quickly jerked one limb away, but the other was still caught. And there the deer charged again.

"Take this you overgrown tree!" I heard Lisbeth's sonorous war cry as she charged it back from the side, her shield raised. As per personal experience with this kind of clash, it rarely ever worked. Her ferocity was betrayed when she was thrown to the ground from the impact force. But it did cause the deer to slightly alter course.

I didn't have any time to register anything else but the deer's terrifying imminence and Lisbeth's rough position. I had to make a move before it ripped me to pieces. The grass blade made two quick slices at the branch tangling my left leg, breaking it and allowed me to perform a split-second side flip to avoid the deer just in the nick of time.

As I landed with surprising grace from an honestly subconscious adrenaline-pumped move, I noticed the deer circling around from its charge and switched target to Lisbeth, who was still on the ground. Instinctively, I rushed for the pink-haired Leprechaun, snatching her with an arm beneath her legs and the other behind her back.

In the distance, in the wake of the deer's attack, Leafa moved in to engage. The red marker, which I just then noticed was no longer above my username but Lisbeth's, swapped to Leafa. So that's why it switched targets.

"T-Thank you, Hirano-san." Lisbeth muttered in my arms, as I put her down.

"You're most welcome, Lisbeth-san." I replied gently, unsheathing my sword again. "Florence, where's that archer support?" As contrasted by the more sarcastic rhetorical directed to my more familiar teammate.

"Typical no support complaint huh, Hirano-kun. Easy for you to say." Florence said, loosening an arrow in the general direction of the deer. In the general direction indeed, I realized she had a point. Only the rough blue and yellow silhouette of the deer was seen as it moved further away to the back of the room, shining blurrily through the thick fog.

That being said…

"Are you hitting that deer at all?" I asked.

"Yes, it's not easy, but I'm contributing." Florence replied, perhaps still a bit annoyed at the earlier quip. But that gave me some rather important intel.

"Do you not get that red mark at any point?"

"No?" Florence said, confused but also seemed to have reached the conclusion I did.

"Wait, your attack doesn't aggro the deer then." I concluded. "For us, every hit ever since it starts the attack makes it switch."

"Huh, that's new to us." Lisbeth spoke up next to me. "I always assumed it does that for every attack. Granted we don't have bow users to test that out."

"Uhh…" Silica, who was standing a few strides away from us, overheard the conversation and raised her hand. "Pina didn't seem to attract its attention either."

Pets and tamable creature attacks were coded into the game as a separate type of attack and were calculated differently from weapon attacks. They probably coded it so pet attacks didn't lock on, which I can only guess was so that it wouldn't be too frustrating.

"Bows and crossbows probably are coded the same way then." I said. Whether that was just spaghetti code or not though I would never know. "But if that's the case, you still have your explosive arrows, right?"

"Quite a few, yeah. Is it resistant to explosives?" Florence replied.

"Nope, if you can hit it, it works wonders." Lisbeth replied.

"Great! Give us your glowing arrows." I excitedly spoke up. My friend tilted her head slightly, but soon realized what I wanted to do.

"Lisbeth-san, Silica-san, take some of these." I said, as I split the arrows as evenly as I could in under two seconds between the three of us. "It outlines anything it touches. You just need to ram and stab the deer when I tell you to."

"Alright, let us know."

"Thank you, Hirano-san!"

Both of them understood me quite quickly. Saved me a lot of time.

We all dashed back into the battleground except for Florence, who remained where she was. I purposefully spread out from Lisbeth and Silica, knowing that it would be too complicated to explain in detail, especially in active combat. I would have to complement what they couldn't do.

As the deer continued chasing Leafa, whose agility had little issues shaking off its pursuit, I waited for the right moment. I just needed it to halt or slow down enough.

And it did, after the Sylph made a sudden change that made it stop and turn. This was the perfect time.

"Now! Attack it!"

I could see Lisbeth's username moving; I moved as well. Being faster, I could only gauge with gut feels, timing it just so I could ram the deer right before her from the opposite direction.

"Haaaaaaaaaahh!"

Hearing her war-cry, I braced with my shoulder and rammed straight onto the right side of the deer. I felt a sizeable force hitting me, as the deer leaned onto my side. I might have mistimed, but the simultaneous attack seemed to have disorientated the deer, rocking back and forth from the impact.

I dug the arrow tip into the mana-flowed flesh. It was not particularly high damage, but the whole deer grew a white outline, certainly enough for my Undine friend to see it. Very soon, from the cold dull mist, like divine bolts in a thundersquall, the arrow sliced through the air in an eerie serenade of anticipation before the eruption of light at the moment of contact, followed by a rippling shockwave. And then another followed, shuddering me and presumably Lisbeth on the other end of the deer.

The deer's health dropped to the second bar, which immediately activated its slam attack mechanic. The mana flowed through its veins to its limbs, a warning sign of impending danger.

"Back off!" I barked out, though I doubt they needed a stranger to tell them how to play. My danger senses screamed inside until I heard the trembling earth and that my health bar stopped moving. I was not fast enough to get out of range, but the attack had already lost its steam, and I took casualties as minimal as a quarter bar. Within acceptable range…

I let out a puff, seeing Leafa in the distance, reassuring her with a nod and a pop of a health potion before jumping back in. The deer's entanglement attack caught Lisbeth attempting a repeat of earlier, and its stab knocked her back, forcing me to take the attention off it. From the little bit of encounters earlier, I knew what to do. A series of quick successive maneuvers, throwing the deer off its momentum, before one sharp turn into the deer.

"Silica-san, your turn!"

I heard her little squeak, but she made her way in soon after. The ram was not as forceful as last time, being the first to initiate contact. I wasn't sure if Silica had done the same, but I saw Pina circling around the deer and sending its bubbles onto the deer. Whatever it is that sent the deer into such a tranced maze, it worked, and two volleys of arrows burst on its head and antler, denting its HP bar.

Once Lisbeth got her health pool back into the safe zone, she rejoined, and another coordinated attack commenced. The deer's HP reached the third and final bar. A final attack slam commenced, and this time, we dodged with much better results.

"I don't know what you all are doing, but good job! It's at its final bar!" Leafa shouted.

"Join us, Leafa!" Lisbeth playfully tossed some arrows towards the Sylph. "Hirano-san is our call guy, just listen to him!" I gave Leafa the thumbs-up as she said that.

"It's been good thus far, let's bring it home!"

Same exact format: a ram from two different directions, stabbing the deer with glowing arrows for Florence to take aim at, and let her do the sniping work. The last bar was quite a bit more than the first two, quite deceptively in fact, but the formula worked. The bar was brought down with a matter of time, and with it, the flowing mana luminesce into white. Cracks soon marred the beautiful pure white, and the deer, like every single mob in this game, burst into a thousand dazzling shower of small fragments.

The battle ended, everyone slowly regrouped for their grand prize.

"Haha, fantastic work you guys." I pumped my fist as I rejoined the group. "I honestly could not ask for better teammates."

The three ladies blushed at my high compliments. "You're too kind, Hirano-san. We couldn't have done it without your guidance." Silica said. But it was still the truth. They carried out my orders almost to a tee. It's a degree of coordination very impressive for someone who never worked together with me before.

"I couldn't have done it without your cooperation either. Not to mention the intel you gave me earlier." I replied. "I think we all deserve our praises, yeah?"

"Yeah, all of us, right?" Florence leaned forward from behind me, looking up at me with the tone of voice of what could politely be described as dry.

"Yes, all of us." I reasserted, comically exaggerating while my eyes rolled all the way back. "Before you ask, I'm sorry for earlier, ok? You're the best teammate I can ever ask for."

"Uh-huh." She responded stifling a giggle, triggering a similar reaction amongst the other three. It's funny how sarcastic she could be online meanwhile in real life…

"Still, how did you figure out that strategy?" Asked Leafa. She wasn't with me when I came up with it, so I explained what I figured out earlier with Lisbeth, Silica and Florence. "Ohhh, that's interesting." She exclaimed. "But you still came up with it on the fly? That's impressive."

"…I, uh, did take a bit of risk there. I didn't know if ramming the deer to disorientate it would have been a great idea." I replied, a little bit flustered. "I guess it worked better than I expected."

"Indeed, it did." Leafa clapped her hands gently. "But still, it's a tactic worthy of Sakuya's praise. Have you met her in-game?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't participate in Sylph affairs that much aside from the tourney." I replied.

"I can introduce you at some point. I think you'll get along."

"Ahaha, I'm honored." I laughed. A good time to switch subject. "Anyway, what you all have been waiting for."

A screen popped up on command congratulating our party for defeating the dungeon boss and allowing us to receive the rewards. Without hesitation, I pressed the accept button, and the rewards distributed evenly amongst the participants, each member receiving a copy of the event spell.

"I don't know what I will be doing with this spell, but I guess it'll be a nice-to-have." Leafa commented, looking at the spell menu.

"This would be a nice gift for Kirito-kun~" Lisbeth said with a devilish smirk, a suggestion that put a noticeable blush on Leafa's cheeks. Must be her boyfriend.

What she just said though…

"Oh sh-" I censored myself just in time. Opening my calendar, I checked the date I marked. Yuuki's birthday is this weekend, and I almost forgot about it. Thankfully, there was still time.

"What's wrong, Hirano-san?" Asked Silica.

"Nothing. Thank you though, Lisbeth-san." I shook my head and hand. "You reminded me of something I needed to do soon."

"Buying gifts?" Lisbeth asked and I nodded. "Heh, that sounded awfully like something you'd do on a regular basis." She smirked, though less teasing.

I clicked my tongue, but not without an accompanying amused smile. I would not affirm nor deny. It was a flattering joke I did not mind.

"Anyway, thank you two so much for helping us out today!" Lisbeth bowed. "Florence-san, here are your potions that I didn't use."

"If you want to, you can keep them." Florence smiled kindly.

"I-I'd feel a bit guilty…" Leafa looked away shyly, before returning the potions back. Then the party was disbanded.

"Before we go, let's add friends! If you don't mind." Lisbeth asked us. "You seem like fun people to hang out with."

I exchanged a glance with Florence. "I would love to."

"It's my pleasure as well." Florence nodded with grace.

Three friend requests popped up for us and were accepted. Now it was really time to part ways.

"Alright! Have a good rest of your days, guys!" I waved with a big smile to my newfound friends. Pina seemed to realize that I was leaving too. "Pina! I'll miss you!"

The dragon barked out, jumping from Silica's shoulders and landing on mine, rubbing his head against my shoulder for one last time before going back. "Hehe, he really likes you, Hirano-san!" Silica let out a cute giggle. "Have a good day, Hirano-san, Florence-san!"

"Let's meet up sometimes. Catch you two later!" Lisbeth said.

"It's been fun. Bye bye!" Leafa followed. Then the three of them teleported out, leaving me and Florence in the silent foggy arena, the friend menu still in front of me – the menu that had grown twice its size just now.

For how long that list had just been just two names that hadn't been online for a long while. Then Yuuki joined, then Florence and now those three. And how many more might I find along the way like this?

"It's a short but growing list, yeah?" Florence peered in, adding her quippy but ultimately insightful final commentary, like usual.

A growing list of friends…it was something I said.

And it was something I've been missing out on these years.

"Yeah, it indeed is." I smiled.