"Keep it down!" screams a voice from nearby, as they rap on a nearby wooden surface. "Some of us are trying to sleep!"

The paper-thin walls apparently aren't too good at muffling my unnecessary exclamation of disbelief.

Right.

Eugh.

Well, it turns out this is actually happening, and the events of yesterday were real, and not some elaborate, strange, fantastic dream.

I mean, it's probably not going to change much, but I didn't really give it much thought. I just sort of went with it. Hopefully, I'll be used to it soon enough, so I won't go through another scare like that anytime soon.

Well… My legs are still sore, but I'll probably feel better in an hour or so. Worse case scenario, I'll need to take a break in the middle of whatever I'm doing.

I guess I should get going, and grab myself some clean clothing before it gets too late in the day.

With somewhat squishy steps, I throw on my shoes, grab my coat, and exit the room.

My nod to the receptionist is rather hasty, but considering how late I've slept in, they probably just think I'm late to go somewhere.

Screw it, I'll just run to the store. The sooner I'm out of these dirty clothes, the better.

Welp. I'm broke. I've less than a hundred credits to my name.

I had no idea clothing was so expensive here. I mean, I saw how much they charge for costumes, but regular, non-flashy clothes? A single set of plain, non-flashy clothing was three hundred credits alone! The rest of my money went towards cleaning my dirty clothes and myself, so at least I don't smell terrible any more. Of course, I bought a rather disgusting and relatively cheap meal too.

I'm probably going to use the extra clothing either as bedclothes, or to relax in. There's not a single thing that was on the rack that wasn't some shade of purple, mauve, or violet, and thus not a single thing that I'd ever imagine myself wearing out in public.

Complaining will get me nowhere, though. I need to head to the Guild and pick up a quest or two. Hell knows I need the money. Hopefully, I'll have enough by tonight to rent a room at the inn again.

Sighing, I shake my head, and continue walking down the street.

Wait, what?

There's someone on the street, wearing an ASIC headpiece, and... a schoolgirl uniform?

Is that?

Oh! Oh man, this'll be fun.

"Oh, wow!" I shout, as I point towards my discovery. I can see the girl smirk as she turns towards me, long bangs obscuring her eyes.

"Look everyone, it's Nepugia!" I speak, gesturing grandly to absolutely no one. Yeah, the street's pretty much empty, but it's the thought that matters.

"No, dummy, it's me…" begins the girl, before she pauses to scratch her head in confusion. "Huh?"

"Oh my god, Nepugia!" I glib, as I continue to putter towards her at a reasonably sedate speed, trying not to set off any red flags too early. "I'm your biggest fan!"

Poor Nepugia is confused. "But… but… you're supposed to think…"

"How could I mistake that fake for you?" I answer, as I rush forward to grab her hand, with an enthusiasm just as fake as the too-wide, toothy smile plastered onto my face. "You look so different, it's obvious to tell the two of you apart! Can I have your autograph?"

I think I might be taking just a bit too much pleasure in watching this girl sputter in place. But seriously, if your entire life is just dressing up like Nepgear, you deserve some excitement every once in a while, no?

"Umm… Uhh…" stammers Nepugia, before she just mentally short circuits and runs off into the distance. I could probably catch up to her pretty easily, but I have better things to do than give some girl an epileptic fit. Also, even though my legs are feeling a lot better than they were this morning, I still don't want to run more than I have to.

Huh? She dropped something. I mean, I could probably return it, but Nepugia is pretty much an unspoken supporter of ASIC, and thus probably in the wrong somehow anyway. Plus, she's probably not wanting to see me again for quite some time.

Sweet, free item! I know the NPCs sometimes give you free stuff, and I definitely earned this… uhh…

Honestly, it looks like a healing item of some kind. Probably a low-grade one.

Still, I suppose it'll come in handy later, so I'll pocket it.

Back to the Guild I suppose. What sort of jobs will be available? I can probably handle a gathering job, or a few easy hunting jobs, but that's of course if there's still things available for me to do.

Crap, I better hurry, then!

It seems most of the 'easy' hunt tasks are already taken… There's a few tasks for the "Darkness 60", but I don't actually know where that is, meaning that if I tried to take a quest there, I'd risk not actually finding it in time. I need guaranteed cash - that's too big of a risk.

All that's left that's within my (still reasonably small) area of skill is a gathering job in the Virtua Forest Depths, along with a pair of hunt missions in the same place.

Unfortunately, they're not high-paying jobs. All three of them add up to only nine hundred fifty credits, and the only other thing on the board is a task to kill a Fenrisulfr. That's… not something I can do. At least, not anytime soon. I definitely remember those big dogs being terrifyingly strong for that area.

I guess it's better than nothing. I sign up for the three easier tasks, as well as grab a printout of what exactly I'm supposed to do for each one. The printouts, of course, are stuffed immediately into my inventory, so that I don't lose the damn things.

The adventurer I talked to yesterday isn't here, by the way: she's probably off doing her own thing.

I suppose it's for the best.

If I want to be able to eat something meant to be eaten tonight, I really need to get going.

I swear, being in a video game seemed a lot more fun, before the whole 'need to work to eat' thing.

I've never been this deep into the forest before.

I mean, I kept mostly to the first third of the outer forest, where there was nothing but Dogoos, anthropomorphic plants, and Real Gamers.

If I'm remembering this correctly, though, then there's going to be…

Oh, never mind. Here it is. It's a Dogoo, about the size of a truck. That's nice. Definitely not terrifying at all, despite the look it's giving me. It looks hungry. Hungry, giant monster is not a good thing!

I don't know if it knows how many Dogoos I've killed, but honestly, I don't want to know whether or not they're able to hold grudges. These big Dogoos are made of lots of little Dogoos, right? So lots of little angry Dogoos, standing right in front of me.

Let's… uhh… skirt *around* this thing, then? I mean, it's pretty big, but there's plenty of space to get around it. Space that I'd prefer to be in, rather than crushed underneath a gigantic slime.

I sure as hell aren't going to try to pick a fight with that thing. Not without backup, at least. I gulp, and try to look innocent.

Oh god it's staring at me. Calm breaths, as I tiptoe around it. It's just staring, it's not doing anything. It's just staring at me with an open mouth. Big, wide open mouth…

"G-"

Crap! It moved! Screw it! Making a break for it!

Okay, it didn't chase me. That's good. My legs, lungs, and arms are definitely not happy though. I'm not fully recovered. I really, really need to get into shape if I'm to survive out here.

Going to sit down for a bit… Catch my breath, make the urge to puke go away...

I think I might have overreacted a little bit. Just a little bit. I guess this gives me a bit of time to look over the place, right?

So these are the depths of the forest, huh? There's a lot fewer trees here than you'd think, and the ground is made of some weird kind of metal: it honestly seems more like a man-made structure than something natural. It's more like someone made a gigantic metal dock over a swamp, rather than a forest clearing.

So apparently, I need to kill some of the jellyfish and the mushrooms, and collect webs from the spiders. I can do that.

At least, I hope I can do that.

Going to rest for just a bit more before I give it a try.

Unlike the front bit of the forest, there's a lot more monsters clustered up together. I'm not really confident in my abilities to fight a big group yet, so I'm just walking around for now, trying to find a single monster, so I can properly gauge just how difficult they are.

There we go, I can see a single monster off in the distance. I better pick it off before more arrive.

My chosen victim is a spider, but it's definitely not a little one. It's about the size of a Labrador Retriever, its mandibles are a foot long each, and it's staring at me. There also don't appear to be any other monsters nearby, so I should be able to handle this.

Let's do this. Throw a knife at it to draw its attention…

"Come at me, you ugly bug!" I shout, as the knife bonks it in the forehead. It screeches in return, before turning towards me.

Crap! It's fast. Much, much faster than the Dogoos: it closed the distance in only a couple of seconds. I dodge left to avoid the charge - luckily for me, while it runs fast, its cornering is bad. It has to skid to a stop to avoid going over the edge of the metal walkway.

It's got an exposed flank now, going to lash out with my right knife, but keep my left up for guard…

"Skree!"

There we go! Solid hit, drop the knife, disengage to make more distance. It's slowed down a bit, but not enough.

I definitely pissed it off, if anything. It's raising its forelegs at me, perhaps to charge again?

Nope! It's not! Blocking it!

I feel a disgusting warmth, and my left hand feels heavier.

Turns out, these things can spit webs. Even worse, blocking the projectile was a terrible idea.

My left hand is pretty much covered in sticky spider webs. It'd probably be worse, if it had hit me directly, but as is, my left knife is pretty much melee only.

Successful or not, the thing seems like it's taking its hampering of me as a victory. It's starting to charge me again.

Okay, dodge out of the charge. This'll take forever, if I...

Wait… Just how strong exactly is this thing? It's only the size of a labrador, and it's mostly flat...

Rather than stab at it, I counter this time with a solid stomp on its midsection, in hopes of slowing it down.

It definitely stuns it for a while. I probably should have opened up with that, but seriously, who opens up with jumping on a spider? Do I *look* like a plumber?

Seizing the opening, I pin the creature's back legs to the ground by sinking a pair of knives into the ground through them, before finally executing the now-neutralized creature with a bisecting cut with a new pair. Shrieking in pain, it vanishes into data and a chip. Nice! Over thirty credits from a single kill.

Definitely more of a challenge than a Dogoo though.

Live and learn, I guess…

My task is to collect spider webs, so I slowly begin to work the gluey substance off of my glove. Hopefully, I'll be able to collect the rest of the webs normally.

The next bunch of spiders go down much, much easier, now that I've figured out how to counter them. They're fast, yeah, but if I jump over them when they charge, they can't get air fast enough to counter my two-foot stomping on their midsections. From there, it's a simple task to pin then kill them. Unfortunately, it seems they're unwilling to drop webs upon death.

I have two out of the three I need, so only one more, and I'll be done. It honestly feels kind of random whether or not they spit webs at me, but at least the second time, I blocked the incoming web with Seamus, rather than a knife. Seamus definitely complained about the shot, but it definitely beat being covered in goop myself.

Luckily for me, the rest of the monsters are much, much easier.

Okay, so the Fungus…

Fungi…

The task seriously asks to kill five Fungi, but it's written down here as Funguses. Do these people seriously not know…

I mean,

Is that how Language works here?

Screw it. Now's not the time for my wind to wander.

The mushrooms are reasonably easy: sure, they occasionally shake their spores in my general direction, but I'm keeping them at a distance to prevent said attack from catching me out. They're only about twice as tough as a Dogoo anyway, so between me landing the odd knife from the distance, or the occasional aggressive (but still pretty slow) charge, I'm mostly just ripping them apart in melee when they hold still enough for me to do so.

I'm also a solid believer of the time-honored wisdom of "Don't breathe that shit in", so even when they aren't releasing spores, I'm holding my breath when I'm near them. I don't know what it'll do to me, but I honestly don't want to find out.

They're also nowhere near as fast as the spiders, so I can handle a group of one or two of them at a time. I'd even risk a spider along with a few of them, but overconfidence isn't going to help me here. The last thing I want to do is leave myself open.

The only problem I'm having is the Jellyfish. The little pains in the asses are difficult to find, but they go down in only a few hits. I think I've put down two of the five that I need, but I don't see any more nearby.

Well, while I'm here, I should keep killing the monsters, regardless. Practice is always good, right?

I'm exhausted...

The cool lake below is definitely helping me keep going, but I don't think I can fight any more for a little while...

I've pretty much checked out the entire area, including the Fenrisulfr den, and taken apart at least two dozen monsters. My watch says it's only five PM, but I feel like my entire body is made of lead...

I've torn apart four of the five Jellyfish, so I only need to look for one more, and I can go home… and rent a bed…

Yeah… a bed sounds nice...

I'm just going to close my eyes for a moment…

"Chitter Skree"

Whuh?

Okay, a spider just popped in to say hi. It's a little bit too close for comfort, but I guess it'll be fine. It's a big one too, almost double the size of the usual ones.

I hadn't meant to fall asleep, but I just couldn't go on any more.

But I guess that was going to happen sooner or later. There's a lot of running and jumping involved in killing these things, so I was bound to run out of energy.

Well, no other way about it, I guess. I'll just need to get to my feet…

Get to… Dammit?

Why aren't I-

Oh no.

I've found my fifth Jellyfish.

And it's wrapped around my leg. The leg which currently is not responding to my attempts to move it.

I stab into the offending jellyfish with both knives, and it vanishes into data. But my leg is definitely still asleep. I hastily use my hands to hoist myself to a crouch, leaning heavily on my good leg to be balanced.

And the Giant Spider is charging.

Not wanting to risk overbalancing when trying to jump over the spider, I extend my good leg to throw myself out of the way.

Wait, what? Crap!

I feel the air being pushed out of my lungs as I get bowled over.

It's heavy. Way too heavy. It's pinning me down. I can feel its legs on my chest. God damn, its fangs are massive, and way too close… It's opening its mouth

!?

Webs? Face…

Crap! Can't breathe…

I can hear it clicking its mandibles. I can hear it, it's way too close…

I'm not dying here. I can't die here. I'm not dying to a stupid fucking spider, no matter what!

I won't, I won't!

With all of my strength, I summon a knife in my left hand. The fangs are too close, I can almost feel them on my face. I can't see it, but I don't need to, can't need to.

Lash my left into the clicking.

It's screeching now, but it's not enough. It's still too close - it still is on me.

I'm screaming too, but I can't hear my own words. Just bellowing in pain and fury, and fear. I tear an air hole into the webs covering my face, with my right arm.

My left arm is on fire. My blood itself is fire. It bit me. It's bit me, but I'm not going down.

It shifts its footing as I surge my weapons upwards into it. My right's free now, I'm killing this thing even if it kills me.

My right's free now, and I've used it to stab upwards in its midsection. I can faintly feel something wet dripping onto me from above, but I'm not done. I'm not done.

Holding steady as I can with my bitten arm, I yank to the side with my right. I'm cutting it apart, ripping it apart. Its shrieks rise in pitch, before finally fading to nothing.

I breathe in through the hole in the webs as I feel the weight leave me. It's gone… it's gone. My left arm is still on fire, still too heavy, but the crushing weight upon me is gone. I still can't see.

My breaths through my mouth are ragged as I try to regain my strength, but it's no good. I try to raise my right hand to my face, to try and free my nose, to free my eyes

It's not enough, I can't stay awake

I have to stay awake have to

I can hear a breathy, excited voice in the distance as everything fades. It's familiar...