[FWO]
I would like to apologise that I am not proficient in Japanese and have written this in English. If you find this interesting and want to translate it to Japanese, I would gladly give you my approval. It's even better if we can work together!
[私は日本に堪能ではないですし、英語でこれを書いたことをお詫びしたいと思います。あなたはこの興味深いを見つけて、日本にそれを翻訳したい場合、私は喜んであなたに私の承認を与えるだろう。私たちが一緒に仕事ができるかどうかはさらに良いです！] Google Translate.
Chapter Zer0 - Prologue
In a marshland; the sounds of heavy footsteps rampaging through the wet soil could be heard. The sounds were approaching me at a rather constant speed.
“Four… No… Five.”
I’ve noticed some unusual sound earlier during my rest in my hut and look towards my top right corner where the mini map was. In it was a white dot which represented me while the red dots could either meant unidentified players or the enemy. One of the red dot was just stationed at the border of the map. Most probably of support class.
“We know you are in there!”
“Do you need something from me?”
“Shut it you Demi human!”
Presented in front of me were four humans. Judging on their equipments, they should be either the Paladin or Guardian classes. They were equipped with identical set of silver chain mail — which made it highly likely that they belonged in the same guild. I’ve noticed their armour had been smeared with mud, most probably came from rampaging the swampy area earlier, but they paid no heed to it and pulled out their sturdy swords and pointed it at me. Two of them had shields and the others welded two handed swords. Two handed sword does generate more power than equipping the extra shield but it leaves you vulnerable to attacks if you are not skilful enough to dodge it.
It was a given that anybody will just pull their weapon out when they encounter a person like me. My body has the same primary functions of a human but the Demi meant that I had beast like traits. Two horns coming out from my forehead and a tail from my end was one of them, my grey skin was the other and finally my hands with furry and sharp claws that resembles a werewolf, it was no doubt that I was referred to a Demi human but hey…
“You guys are the one stepping into my territory! I just wanted peace!”
“Peace? Don’t make me laugh! There’s no such thing as peace in this game!”
This battle freak guys just don’t understand the beauty of this open free world.
“Ha! We have received an official quest from the guild house to eliminate you and to take back this land that was rightfully ours!”
— Take back this land? Do they not know about the treaty for this place I’ve took so long to acquire?
“Enable status boost!”
Their bodies illuminated red and then green for an instant and it seems they were very confident about it.
By habit, I stared into my user interface (UI) and I was caught by surprise when I rechecked their status. Their initial average level was fifty two but now it has increased to sixty one. I placed my hand on my chin and began to think of several possibilities while they slowly took light steps left and right in attempt to surround me completely.
“NOW!"
Just as their order of formation was set, they immediately launched their attack when I was still being attentive to my UI.
“That was rude.”
I exclaimed as I instinctively brushed off their attacks again and again with my claws.
It didn’t take them long to be breathing profusely after their constant flow of attack and this time the guy on my left equipped with the two handed buster sword leaped at me to attack, the others obviously had lost their tempo and had followed up a second later in a formation preparing to attack together.
In response to his attack, I assumed a defensive stance — my left palm facing towards the swordsman who is about to attack me while my right hand formed a fist and rested by my waist level.
The sword and my palm collided but it didn’t have any effect and that made the other three stop in their tracks. At close up, I was a head taller than the swordsman and in terms of strength, he was struggling to pull back his sword that was in my grasp. In return, my resting right fist pushed forward with pace and it collided against his thick chain mail. He released a painful cry as the recoil from my fist made him rattle against the players equipped with the shields.
“Is that the best you can do?”
With the men now realising that they underestimated a lone Demi human after I’ve crushed the metal sword with my bare hands, they kept their distance and formed a defensive formation. The guy without his sword, now equipped himself with a temporary short dagger and assumed his position too. I’ve noticed there was a shade of green and blue light which momentarily illuminated their bodies. This time the red boost was not casted and when I rechecked their average level, it was back to the initial. That cheating skill most likely had a very long cool down and thus that supporter who was positioned all the way at the border had to cast some other defensive spells instead.
Beep. Beep. I’ve noticed a notification from the bottom left hand corner of my UI and the time indicated half past four in the afternoon in the real world.
“I will end this pointless battle soon!”
In fact, I had more than an hour more for preparing dinner but as far as I know that my little sister is concerned with time, I had to get dinner done at least fifteen minutes earlier.
Casting haste, I moved my body forward without a second to spare for the four armoured players. With my height and looks intimidating them up close, they began to shiver in fear while remembering the attack I just launched on their barely standing comrade.
“Fear me!"
<Fear> was quite the useful skill, it was actually used to scare off low level monsters but instead I wanted to test if it works on players —Apparently it does.
The wind slightly vibrated at the sound of my roar and the once courageous men dropped their precious equipments and fled. Soon, the mini map with the red dots surrounding my position began to disperse off in different directions. Well.. I was not really interested in their equipments since they were quite low levelled. The person who made up of their average level to 76 is the spell caster who is positioned at the border.
“Can I kill them?”
“Ah.. Toma.. You were watching?”
I then noticed a shadow of a person floating above my position and a familiar monotonous voice of a girl speaking directly into my mind and then I scratched my head.
“Your face!! It’s scaring me!”
“You are the one who created me this way, Master.”
“I just wanted to play this game in peace. And when I acquired you from the ’Trials of the NPC Goddess’ event last time, I wanted create something that would make the players run before they even think of attacking my place.”
“So I was created to scare players off? How convenient.”
“Sorry..”
Being told off by my own Non Player Character (NPC) is the last thing that I want to have, but while coming up with a reason for her design to be that way, it made me feel bad. After all, all NPCs in this world unlike any other game acts and moves like players. Even some veteran playing this game as of date have a hard time differentiating between them.
Well, Toma was created as a NPC that had a body that looked like a twelve year old with a dead expression and speaks with a monotonous tone. She was equipped with a shrine maiden robe with a black obi around her waist and secured like a big ribbon at the back. The thing that made her stand out were the black wings that extended from her back, it was something I won from an event one year ago at an event called ‘The Tengu strikes back’. Technically, only players who could fly can participate in that event.
With her jagged shape mouth and child like eyes like from some horror movie, I was certain that there was a higher chance that players will not dare attack this place. But even sometimes I get scared when I see her eerie smile extends till the side of her cheeks and the bloodlust look in her eyes, just like earlier.
“So…”
“What is it?”
“Can I kill them?”
“Hah… Ok Ok. You get those three running in the North East while I get the last guy and the unknown mage closest to the East.”
It was obvious that I lost my reasoning with her ever since I gave that lame excuse and she just wanted to let our some steam by killing some players.
NPC have their own set of problems too, though only in this game.
She stretched out her giant wings and took off. I looked at my UI and activated my skill <Animal Mode>.
“I still can’t get used to this mode though.”
My body instantly transformed into quite a large size wolf form and I immediately gave chase to the fleeing enemy which I have marked on my mini map.
For three minutes of conversation with Tama, the enemy only managed to run seven hundred and fifty meters from my position.
— Just how slow are they?
“There we go!”
“Hee!! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I don’t want the penalty!"
It barely took me four leaps to match his distance and with my fourth leap, I had already gone over his head and landed right in front of the portal that links to the next grid.
I muttered ‘geez’ and in my UI, activated <Beast Mode>. My body once again transformed and this time I fully resemble a werewolf.
“You didn’t even put up a fight. You guys know that?”
“I wasn’t told that we will be facing a Tier A enemy!”
“Well that was an insult. You even brought a skilful mage. Now, tell me who hired you and I will let you live.”
“It’s… Twin…”
“Argh!!!” A series of echoes of men cries lurks in the deep forest.
“Looks like your comrades has been done in, reveal them and you will be spared.
“It’s Twin Crescent Blades of the <Fairy> race. Now you will let me live you monster! Ha… Haha… Hngh!”
My beast form ears twitched a little upon hearing a unpleasant word and my body was first to react.
After a short pause between his desperate laugh, the player could do nothing but crashed into the nearby tree. Three red fragments lines stretched from his torso to shoulder was visible —Several claw marks courtesy of yours truly. While his health bar was slowly reducing to nothing, he made all sorts painful noises as if he have been stabbed and slashed by Jack the Ripper in real life. In this world, the pain have been reduced to the minimum. Taking into account like the guy earlier who took a fist to his gut might have only felt a sting. Like a needle poking your skin.
—What’s with the role playing? Imminent, your death is. But you do not need to go that far.
“That’s not what you agreed…”
Those were his last words before his body turned into a shiny bright crystal and it floated in the air with a three hundred seconds counter hanging above in the air. Players in this form will not be able to communicate verbally but will still be able to send a message to players they know in their friend list. The crystal will slowly lose it’s shine during the count down and when it become dull, it cracks and perish, bringing back the player back to his last saved point. The status penalty will be invoked at the time of respawn.
I’ll just leave it there and let him suffer that death timer, I thought and brought my attention towards the woods.
“Why don’t you reveal yourself?”
That player wasn’t exactly good at hiding. Even while standing behind the thickest tree trunk in the vicinity, without my <Sharp Senses> skill, I could still spot the obvious tip of the staff weapon protruding out from both sides. But still, I didn’t want to play it that obvious so I pointed towards the tree on the left of the sneaky player.
I was instantly greeted with several ice lance flying towards me. I manage to fend it off with my thick layer of skin and in my hand I caught the final unbroken ice lance that came at me. While managing the wave of attack, I picked up the sound of the spells, <Float> and <Haste>, the player casted —Fleeing, it seems.
The status <Frost> and an unknown skill aliment symbol started to blink above my health bar. I understood that the frostbites will creep onto my skin eventually but this unknown symbol? I determined that holding this lance any longer will prove fatal and I took a throwing stance and aimed it at the red dot moving in my mini map. Just before the aiming assistance kicked in, I released the lance into the air and while being confident with my Strength stats, the lance effortlessly pierced through every tree truck that it passes till it dissipated and activated an area of effect (AOE) second tier spell within the range of the enemy.
I wiped off the drop of sweat off my forehead in relieve as I swapped back into my <Demi Human> form.
"I guess I will just scare that player off and get back to the real world.” I muttered and made my way to the final player.
What happened back there was that my passive skill <Six Senses> had picked up something fishy about the lance thus prompting the blinking status.
While the icon is blinking, it gives me a full three seconds to do something about it before the status aliment activates. One of the perks being a Demi human and it’s one of a Tier S skill since it could delay the cast.
The once swampy area now became an icy area. And the player who was covered with a robe to hide the identity had his hands and legs trapped on a ice pole —Like some sort of mobster movie where the main character gets caught and gets harshly interrogated.
Without a second thought, I looked into my UI again and activated my <Beast Mode>.
Now, with mist seeping out of my mouth as I breath and a scary bloodlust form as a werewolf, there was no doubt that I looked scary enough.
“A fusion caster. Such a rare sight. But…"
“FEAR ME!"
I let out a strong roar in my werewolf form and with my giant claw hooking onto the cape, it simply was destroyed as I flicked it.
I could see the <Fear> Status above the player HP bar and knew that was enough to make him go away but I least expected that the player behind the cape was a female.
Of course, if I knew beforehand, I would have done it in some nicer way. —I must as well just go through the end.
“Surrender yourself and don’t ever come here again!”
I’ve completed my sentence but it sounded slightly lighter than my first warning. With the last warning, I turn my back on that player… Damn it! She’s so pretty! What a dumb move I’ve made. With the thought of slapping myself hard in the face to hide the obvious blush, the passive skill <Tranquillity> effect kicked in. A setback for all Demi humans because of our super human skills, we are not allowed to have any form of strong expression.
When you look at her again, she have quite the perfect looks and elegant body. Her silky black hair extended till her hips with a white ribbon tied to the end of it, she had hair braids falling from the left side of her face. A red rose was clipped to her right to prevent hair from covering her face. Such beautiful glowing purple eyes to go along with her pale innocent face and such soft lips makes you just want to touch it. She was wearing a dark coloured mage outfit —Well that’s of course since she was a mage by class. The contrast of the dark outfit as compared to her pale white skin was contradicting and it was kind of revealing since without any effort in peaking was required, I was able to see her smooth collarbone and pale nape on her well endowed body. That made me looked away at first but thinking that my real identity is unknown and since it’s a game, I should not be called the pervert since she was the one wearing such sketchy clothes.
In the end, I made a bold decision to walk away, and head back to my hut so I can log out from the game to start preparing dinner for my pesky little sister but before I could do that, I was distracted by a very soft giggle coming from that player.
I suddenly remembered from reading some news recently that players who played Virtual Reality games like the one that we are in became traumatised by some scary, gore, horror or evil scene turned crazy and end up in the hospital for a very long time. A sense of guilt then hit me hard… What if this girl is traumatised by my acting earlier? The symptoms of silently laughing is definitely not a good thing to witness. I’ve seen documentaries before.
“Hey! Snap out of it!”
“Ah! My beast mode!”
I completely forgot that I was still in my werewolf mode and actually went up to her with my claws gently placed on her shoulder. The sound of her giggle gradually increased and before I could lift my claw off, her right hand grabbed onto one of my claw… This is very bad! What should I do.. But before the panic kicked in, <Tranquillity> effect kicked in again. When did she even got out of the ice trap? Also, I could not transform back due to the longer cool down of my transformation skill as it was being frequently used earlier.
“Neee~”
I took a step back when her voice sounded in my eardrums but it had a very mature ring to it.
“It’s easier to punish me this way.. Right~?”
“Eh….? Wha…?”
My jaw just dropped when she faced towards the tree and raised her hips up in my direction.. I just told her to surrender and leave but judging from her expression, it’s as if the words —Spank me, was lewdly coming from her mouth. Just when my otherworldly desires were about to be kicked in, the <Tranquillity> effect activated once again… Damn you, Tranquillity!
“Surely you jest.”
“Neeee~ Ha~yaaaa~ku~” she said it in a even more seductive voice.
“Wha…?!"
I tried to play it cool but with that uncontrollable voice of hers, I immediately directed my view to her health bar as a distraction and to my surprise, the <Fear> effect had already worn out. If this was not the effect of the <Fear> —Which is not supposed to be, then what is causing her to act this way? The effects of the trauma could make a person this way?
“You should take good care of your body!” I exclaimed.
Not only that she released herself from the ice trap, she even turned towards the tree and trapped her hands together again with her ice skill so high up that her armpits could be seen from my angle. It then made me wonder if she belonged to some weird guild like some role playing type or sorts.
It’s like I am the one being punished now.
As far as I can remember, this is like the first time that I meet a female <Human> race player in game, alone together in a secluded forest and this close, in the game. If I have a conversation, no matter how short it is with any other girls in real or the virtual world, they will just brush me off or say some things that leaves some stinging aftereffects.
Her breathing became faster and vapours coming from that soft plum lips of hers slowly became visible. Her chest was rising and falling at a constant rhythm and became very noticeable.
But… Now… What a chance. My heart almost stopped as I was seduced by her actions. An unavoidable ecchi thought crossed my mind. I mean when will you ever get a golden opportunity like this. Leaving the conversation aside, she was completely unguarded. So I threw all my reasoning aside and took my once in a lifetime chance.
Slowly but surely, my paw was an inch close to making contact and the gentle sound of huffing and puffing stopped for a second. This made me retract my arm a little but deep within my mind, the devil was telling me carry on. Even the Angel agreed.
“HaaaH… Hngh…. Ahaaa…”
I made another attempt at it and this time as soon as strains of my fur touched her skin, the huff and puff evolved into an erotic moan and I had a really hard time to hold the feeling in to prevent the <Tranquillity> from kicking in.
I took a big gulp down my throat as all kind of weird moan from the 'dictionary of Erotic Voices’ came out from her irresistible lips as my left paw have been firmly placed on her exposed smooth silky and slender back, and that caused a little shiver down her spine. Her hips then raised up even higher causing her back to form a even more beautiful arch. She turned her head and her expression was telling me as if she was ready to accept anything that comes her way.
“You’ve asked for it!"
The <Tranquallity> returned my senses when I raised my other hand and it stopped me halfway in between from landing that smack. I could suddenly hear Tama calling me through the voice message function. She must have been calling me for a long time but due to all my first time situation happening all in one place, I’ve lost focus. My transformation skill cool down timer ticked to zero and I opted to my <Animal Mode> and immediately leap off back into the deep forest, disappearing behind the scrubs, leaving that weird girl behind.
Now that I think of it, is that a tactic of hers to get me banned for a long time for sexual harassment? If it was —it definitely was —, then she is a very dangerous person. I looked into my UI list of recently met players and other than the four male names which appeared, a female name appeared.
“Litania?” I will put her on my watch list then.
"I should be more careful from now on.” I took a sigh and continued running till the sight of the hut could be seen and with Tama standing in wait at the door.
Dangerous… The female species… Dangerous… Indeed… I somehow got myself to a firm decision to try and avoid any female contact in game and real life.
"Thank you, Tama!”
I shouted from a distant as I prepared myself to give her plenty of kisses when I return before I log out. She, though was an exception.
—All I wanted was to lead a peaceful life in the game...
— — — — — + + + + + — — — — —
This game [Free World Online], also known as [FWO], the name was quite self explanatory. It was a completely free world and players can have the freedom of doing anything that is legal within the game. It’s an VRMMORPG created by the company, Open Logic while working alongside a huge server company, Daiko Technological Limited. Both companies were located in the outskirts of Tokyo and it’s said that they have multiple huge warehouse to keep their servers in it. This game have been released in Japan and have been an exclusive for it’s user as of date.
The game boast a open world map of ten thousand by ten thousand kilometres from end to end and offer a whole new redefining experience of the different Job Classes available. This game is practically strategy based and so it’s a Player Kill (PK) friendly environment. The world map is divided into one by one kilometre grids, meaning calling Grid 1x1 indicates the top left corner of the map and 1x2 would mean the grid beside it.
The primary races in the game are {Humans}, {Elves}, {Fairy}, {Demi Human}, {Beast} and {Demons}.
When the game was first launched, this six races were divided in to each corner of the map where the {Human} and {Demon} race took the top middle and bottom middle of the map respectively. Then for all races fortresses, an occupancy of the default one thousand grids is given. Players will have to slowly work their way up to the top by conquering the neutral space outside their fortress and as they proceed deeper and deeper into the open world map, the difficulties and rewards increases accordingly.
This game is special too. It is considered to be the only alive game so to speak. Even if the players were not logged in, they could order their Non Playable Characters (NPC) to do their bidding. Unlike any other games, NPCs here are equipped with their own set of minds, thus the most fitting word to use here is Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, having your own NPC requires you to be at least level hundred and fifty and to be able to clear a tremendously difficult quest. Quest requirements for a party was not needed but nobody will be stupid enough to go in alone and just die pointlessly to get a penalty —Though I did it myself, it was a gruelling Tier SS quest and the enemy were incredibly strong.
As of the present game situation, the {Humans} which is the most picked race by players conquered almost thirty seven percent of the grid while the {Demi Humans} the least popular chosen race and population of all suffer a percentage of only nine percent grid space. Five to Six patches back, unity quest were issued. Meaning that if you meet the race requirements in your party, you can proceed with the quest and get some extremely rare items. This quest were mainly for the {Human}, {Fairy} and {Elves} to be partied together while the {Demons}, {Beast} and {Demi Human} do the same. But as of recent, the game is promoting even better rewards if you have a party of all races.
This is truly a solo or multiplayer experience.
“And.. Send…”
“I will gather the items required, Master.”
A small chibi character of Tama, the NPC that I have acquired from the quest one year ago acknowledged my request and disappeared from my screen. A new patch was released from it’s developers that there is a new function in their phone application of the game and that is to communicate with your NPC. If you had one. This application is very convenient for us players as it has a real time update of the status of the game world. Players can now send private messages to their friend list, set meeting locations, check their inventory, check the status of their store (If they are Merchant by class), etc. etc.
But the lingering thoughts of yesterday haunts me as I squeezed myself into the crowded train in attempt to go to school. Yes, holiday break fun was finally over a week ago and another yet long gruelling high school term has started.
Yesterday, after I logged myself from an extremely enticing situation, I was presented with yet another death defying situation where my little sister had already swung down her leg that was hanging in the air for quite awhile and it was just too late to dodge it. The sound ‘Pak’ bounced off the walls of my room as I held on to my forehead, crying in pain, however it was not —It seemed that the repeated use of <Tranquillity> in game has an effect on me in real life now.
“Geh… Pervert.”
My sister gave me an expression of disgust as I stood up from my bed and headed to the kitchen while not showing any expression of pain. In fact, I was smiling.
“You’ve could have just push the call button on my gear set right?”
“I did!”
“More than once?”
“What? You don’t believe me? Hmph..”
She crossed over her arms and pouted as I was in the final stages for whipping up dinner for the both of us. Mika, my little sister was two years my junior and had been living with me since our parents were stationed overseas for work. Since Mika had her Aikido and I was lazy to get used to a new environment, we pleaded with our parents to let us stay behind. However, to get their approval, we shifted to a place where we used to live and had a family friend to act as a guardian to watch over us —Which we did.
I have been with Mika since birth and I fully aware of her personality inside out. You could call me the 'walking wikapedia of Mika’. I can list from her likes and dislikes of food, her favourite outfit, what time she always takes her bath and what tune she would always sing while bathing. There’s more but there’s just too much for me to say. You could say that I’m the ticket to the guys that are interested in my sister. In my eyes, she is considered very attractive among her age.
Oh just so you know, she is currently wearing her favourite ‘You’re Going Down’ t-shirt with a thumbs down picture highlighted at the back of the catchphrase and a pair of Aikido training black pants with her hair tied up into a pony tail.
“Itadakimasu!”
“Eat slowly or you’ll choke.”
“And whose fault is that.”
“… I had an important mission in game.”
“Hmm? Anyway I’ll be back from training at around half past nine.”
“That’s late.”
“That’s a given. We are preparing for prefectoral qualifications.”
“Oh.. It’s that time of the year. Well give it your best shot.”
“What are you doing! It’s embarrassing! Don’t you dare do this to other girls!"
Instinctively, I patted her on the forehead. She blushed a little and pushed my hand away. Obviously she was enjoying it. So I teased her a little.
“So I can only give my pats to you? Onii-chan will be happy.”
“Thank you for the meal!”
I pretended not to notice the very transparent look of happiness showing on her face and started to stack the bowls to bring them to the kitchen.
“I’ll get going then! Come by when you are free. I’m sure master will be happy to see you."
She shouted from the hallway before leaving and I silently sticked my hand out from the kitchen with a thumbs up.
—I can’t go back there anymore.
Back to the present me, now patting the bandage sticked onto my forehead while stepping out of the train and turning towards the north exit of the station. But being preoccupied with that patch on my forehead, I accidentally bumped into a person that was ahead of me and because of that the book she held on fell onto the ground.
“I’m really sorry.”
“Ah…"
I picked up the small novel, dusted it and returned it to her with both hands. I bowed in apology and quickly disappeared into the crowd. I was quite sure she was about to say something but..
—Why is my heart beating so fast?
I held onto my chest as I made it to the exit and tapped my payment card on the gantry before exiting. Our eyes just met for an instant but that made my heart pumped faster. But from the fresh incident that happened in game yesterday, I sealed off my thoughts of that girl and stood firm with my resolve —Mika and Toma were the only girls I need. That’s right.
Minutes later, my resolve was automatically crushed when I couldn’t stop thinking about that brief moment. Her amethyst coloured eyes along with a composed look on her innocent face while resting on her shoulders was a red sasha used to tie the end of her smooth looking shoulder length black hair.
I let out a sigh just after I shake the thoughts off a certain weirdo I wished I didn’t remember. They were just the complete opposite of each other.
Thinking on the brighter side while pushing up my frames glasses, I could happily ease myself out of school when the final bell rings without any hassle since I don’t belong to any clubs and immerse myself in [FWO] —Or so I thought.
“Hey! Underclassman!”
I should be thinking of the present rather than the future. The thoughts ran through my mind as I was forced by my uniform collar into an alleyway and a group of my school upperclassmen surrounded me. They were dressed rather funkily. It may look cool to them but I think otherwise.
“Lend me some money will ya!”
“I don’t have any.”
“What chaya saying?!”
“Oi! How many times have I told you! When asking for money from an underclassmen, you must ask him nicely like this.”
A tall guy appeared from behind the gang with his uniform unbuttoned, had a multiple earlobe piercings and a silver skull necklace. He placed both hands on my uniform and slightly lifted me off the ground. Ask nicely? My foot! I was then assuming that he was the leader.
Just when I thought should live a low profile life from now onwards—Ah.. What luck I have… I should have raised it more in my character. The Luck (LUK) stat were mainly raised for the thief class for higher monster item stealing success rates and for players who normally goes to the neutral zone casino to make some credits off the game to buy in game items. It’s said in the last patch that if you do certain quest given by the game master (GM) themselves, you could exchange different kind of usable or eating products and sent to our real life addresses. Those quest given by the GM were still in its BETA test but it seems to prove quite a good result.
“Hey Hey! What do we have here.”
“Young lady, you are just gonna get yourself hurt here.”
“Hold on.. You’re actually quite cute. How about you hang out with us."
The leader pushed his buddy aside and lowered himself to the girl eye level.
“I’m actually trying to read and this happened to be the path that I commute to school.”
I regained my senses when the tight grip on my uniform was released and heard some loud laughter from the group. To my surprise, the very same girl I’ve bumped too this morning made her second appearance. It was then that I noticed that she was wearing the uniform of the school I attended. But why didn’t I any memories of her at school? I'm sure that with her appearance, it would definitely be the hottest topic discussed among the boys.
—Get out of here.. Such cliche if I were to use some catchphrase from some anime or manga… I should use this opportunity to escape… But leaving a girl behind.. Even if I am lacking in the <Strength Stats> in the real world, I should be a man, do the right thing and just get beaten down to a pulp.
However, my thoughts were betrayed the second time when the taller guy was sent flying onto the ground…Ehhh?! What just happened? He was also knocked out cold too.
“What just happen?”
The guy wearing a hipster cap spelt my thoughts out. I sweared I saw that now unconscious leader was just about to put his hand on her shoulder and this action happened. A one hit skill? Did that even exist in the game? The gang just froze and stood rooted to the ground with their mouths opened while leaving them hanging in the air. I was included too.
She didn’t flinch one bit. Momentarilty, I could see her chest expanded and compressed quite obviously but soon it became less clear when her breathing rhythm became normal. Her posture remained natural as she slightly fiddle around with the sasha on her shoulder while slowly flipping to the next page on the novel she was reading.
“Please pardon me.”
She politely bow and cruelly stepped over the unconscious body in attempt to pass through the crowd and that’s when our eyes met again. However, it felt different. The impression she has now was completely different from what I remembered. It’s like I’m looking at another person.
I wanted to apologise for my actions in the station earlier even if I mistaken this person but my voice failed me at that moment when she single handily took down the remainder of the gang as they tried to assault her from behind. Such a cowardly move by them… But that was not for me to judge. Her actions sent chills down my spine and my courage I’ve built up to apologise sank back into my intestines.
“Ah…”
By instinct, I took a step back as she moved a step forward.
“Where is…”
“I’M SORRY!!!”
I scampered off like a scaredy cat, running as fast as my legs could take me further away from that dangerous girl —It was as if my <Six Senses> ability from game activated and as a result, running was my final decision.
I dropped my head heavily on my desk with a rather loud ‘thum’ sound produced when I reached school.
“Hey! What’s with that already exhausted look? Heavily grinding yesterday till late?"
“No.. No.. I sleep seven hours a day.. Ken..”
“But it’s as if you have not slept for a month!”
“Just overcoming yesterday’s and today’s event made me this way..”
“Eh… Some event in game I missed out?!”
By game, he actually meant [FWO]. His cool outward appearance might not look that way but in fact he is quite the hardcore gamer too. He began scratching his head hard while scrolling through his phone in search for the game news in the application list.
Dong! Dong! The usual boring sound of the school bell rang and homeroom started when our teacher, Hajima walked in.
“Be quiet and take your seat.”
“Oh a new event.”
“What?!”
He poked his phone over to me discreetly even when the teacher was present but since both of us were the only two students in the last row, it doesn’t really matter since Hajima sensei had a very bad eyesight.
“Now.. I know we are into our second week but we are having a transfer student joining us today. Come in!”
The usual chatter among the students guessing whether the new student will be a male or female and different kind of tactics to approach this person. But the classroom suddenly became silent when she stepped though the door. The only thing left that could be heard was the ‘vrrrrrrmmmmm’ sound of the mounted wall fan swinging from left to right.
“Do you know her?"
Ken began to nudge my sides with his elbow but it eventually became a slap on my shoulder in attempt for me to look up at the person standing next to my desk. Introductions were over and I was just too engrossed with the interesting game news that was updated three-four minutes ago.
I felt a sudden penetrating glare by the whole class just as I slowly lifted my head to access the situation. —I don’t remember raising my Luck Status when the amethyst coloured eyes which I fondly remember was staring into mine as she stood by my table. I flipped my eyes to the right to catch a glance of her name written on the board and looked at her again.
“Erm… Do you need something, Shirobane-san?”
“I’m sorry.”
She bowed and it completely caught me by surprise. Even my classmates were confused by her sudden apology to me.
“You ran earlier from the alleyway.. was because…”
—Because?
The rather awkward pauses between her sentences made some of the guys restless. —No matter what you do to her earlier, you will regret it later, you creep. Those were the words I sensed coming from some of the hostile guys seated closer to the front. While that made them restless, the tension between us is even more stressful —But only for me though.
“Were you disappointed when you ogled at my chest earlier in the alleyway? I know you were upset that’s why you ran.”
“Haaahhhhhh?!!!!?”
She crossed her arms right under her chest in attempt to slightly lift it up but her efforts were only visible to me.
At that moment, I could feel the words ‘creep’, ‘pervert’, ‘disgusting’ etc coming from the girls group but I tried to defend myself.
“Did you mistaken me for someone else? I’m sure this is the first time we met.”
“Ah you look at my chest again... Ecchi…” She blushed and looked away.
It was my complete defeat. While I didn’t meant to look, she was the one who was trying to make me look with her unexplainable action.
My defence was completed overturned and what’s worst, her claims just added more oil into fire. Thunderstruck under the bright clear skies while pencils were snapping one by one in half in the hands of several guys in my class. While every day before was already bad for me, from now onwards it will just be worst. Is there a hold somewhere to stick my head in like an ostrich now? Why did I even bother to reply. I had the choice of ignoring her but...
“Please quiet down! Homeroom is starting!”
Our elderly teacher saved me from many more death and piercing stares from my classmates and carried on with attendance marking.
Shirobane quietly took the empty seat beside me as I completely turned white from her assertive statement. My soul had decided to abandon my body in attempt to hide from embarrassment but it returned when I caught a slight smirk off the side of her face as I flatten my face onto the table while facing in her direction.
“It’s payback when you ran.”
“Huh?”
“I was lost and wanted to ask you for directions.”
“…"
“If you call me Rei-chan, maybe, I’ll forgive you.”
She whispered the last sentence close to my ears and I forcefully turned my head towards Ken while he gave me the ‘try hard’ expression and responded to the teacher’s attendance calling.
Looks and personality is a scary thing. There’s where the enlightenment words of ‘Don’t judge the book by it’s cover’ smacked me hard in my already overworked and tired brain.
'Maybe, I’ll forgive you? What kind of vague explanation is that?!’
—It looks like I have a very long day ahead.
