[F1-SP] Mind and Soul (Mind and Body Pt.2)

[Ratatosk 0]

Ratatosk had quite an adventure, until his pants fell to the floor. "Hideshido you [censored] head!" His boxers were still on, at least he didn't steal the pants. "Damnit Hide, [censored] asshole." The blonde put his pants back on and a belt to make sure that guy wouldn't pants him again. "God damnit! Assholes." He went back to the safezone to think about how he'd get Hideshido back for pantsing him. "That's it! I'll pants him when he's no-" Ratatosk got pantsed again by the same person. "Damnit Hideshidoooo!"

[Ratatosk 0]

Ratatosk wasn't in a good man, at least he was in the safezone so that nobody could pull a stupid prank on him. "Peace and quiet, I wonder where that damn Hideshido is now? Well wherever he is, he's going to get his ass beaten by me." The blonde sighed and looked into the sky. There were more birds than usual, that idiot Hideshido was probably screaming while pantsing people. "This guy... I just wonder how he's able to do that without anyone killing him."

[Ratatosk 0]

A mob of players swarmed into the Town of Beginnings, each of them screamed something different. "PK'er! Pantser!" Ratatosk face palmed, "[censored] really? What's gotten into these people, it's like Aincrad just gets weirder every single day. Sure does have a lot of boys though, that's sad. I was expecting to see at least a few girls here, even though I'm afraid of them, but I guess not. Too many boys, too much conflict. Need girls to equal it out, or at least provide some balance in the gender gap."

[Ratatosk 0]

He was right, a gigantic, if not, eighty eight percent of Aincrad's players were male. That annoyed him greatly, "And you know what that means? Needless conflict." Ratatosk knew how stupid a lot of Aincrad's players were, some try to fight monsters on their first day (And die), or they go on floor bosses that they obviously won't survive. "Yup, lots of idiots but not enough death. Now time to count up those numbers, that would mean eight thousand eight hundred men, and two thousand two hundred girls."

[Ratatosk 0]

Ratatosk decided to do an experiment involving numbers. "Oh, and you know what else? Most of those boys and girls aren't very independent in their thought process. (I know some of you may be reading this and are offended, I don't care.) And that is why I can only find a select few who get along with me." The blonde continued on with that experiment, he'd count the first hundred people that walk past him, and count how many were boys or how many were girls. "Time to count!"

[Ratatosk 0]

"Four... Seven... Holy [censored]! Thirty eight?" The numbers were a lot different than he expected them to be, of the one hundred he counted, thirty eight were girls, and the other were boys. "That's frightening, maybe I need to be scared of boys as well." One thing was clear from his observation, all those boys were absolute, one hundred percent white knights. "I really hate white knights who think they're the stuff. White knight? KoB, red and white knights... Really flashy and ugly outfits, too bright for my taste. Dark purple is a nice color, they could have settled on that." 

[Ratatosk 0]

Ratatosk started to think about guilds, which one would he join, or would he just go solo? "Going solo sounds like there's a lot of freedom involved, cause there is. But at the same time, it's lonely. You can only depend on yourself to survive, when you're in a dire situation and about to die, nobody will heal you. I guess that's what it's like to be alone." There was a high risk of dying when soloing a quest, but wasn't that risk a part of the adventure? "That's true, you've got to do some risky things to actually live life instead of being holed up in your cautious little space."
 

[Ratatosk 0]

An internal conflict had been going on in his mind, "If I knew I was going to die, then why the hell would I even try a quest like that? I know risks are needed to live life, but going solo like this is just crazy. If I die here, nobody will know how I died." Ratatosk kept thinking, but after a while he stopped. "Right, life is not long enough to worry about things like that. I'll decide what I'll do later, just going to sit back and enjoy the breeze." The blonde felt a gust of air move his hair (Rhyme :D), it was pleasant but didn't last very long. "Maybe I'm thinking about this too much."

[Ratatosk 0]

Ratatosk leaned back on the bench, after clumsily falling he got back up and went to a nearby tavern to think. "Much better, now how much girls were in this game again? Right, not very many." The population lacked a sort of diversity that was important for a game, but then he remembered again. Death is not a game. "Right, and I even bet there are a few people here who aren't actually Japanese, but how did they get the game? They had to be in Japan to get the game because it sold only in Japan, and in a few minutes everything was sold out to hell."

[Ratatosk 0]

"I wonder what attracted all the boys to this game? I bet it's because of that gender thing..." He remembered it like yesterday. All the girls around him turned into boys when they looked into the mirror, and there were a lot of people wearing pink. Mostly though, there was an outrage of people crying, "Wait, you're not a girl!" That was a nightmare for Ratatosk, he chose male that day to see how much he'd change, but the only thing that became different was his facial features, and hair. "Yup, that wasn't really much of a change. I didn't look that different at all."

[Ratatosk 0]

Ratatosk remembered the days that went by recently, they were filled with adventure and experience, literally. "Ten days since I started getting serious, and now I'm level twelve. I guess leveling up is pretty easy in this game isn't it? But once I'm in the twenties, it'll be harder. I know right now, I can manage on my own, but eventually I'll probably need some help, can't do everything alone can you?" It was true that everyone, no matter how strong, could die. Even the front liners, they risk death every single day of their lives fighting the floor bosses, trying to clear the game.

[Ratatosk 0]

It would take a while for him to be able to test out his blade, he recently got his one handed sword skill to rank three. "Damnit, and when the hell are those accessories going to come anyways? Four damage isn't enough for a level twelve, I need at least seven." Damage was one of the main stats in the game, whoever had the highest damage and had decent mitigation was the strongest player. But also, skills and sword arts were a huge factor in strength as well, he knew that the Azure Brigade had some of the best players in the game, but so did the KoB, being one of the most popular guilds as well.

[Ratatosk 0]

Ratatosk thought about joining a floor boss once he reached level twenty five, but then reconsidered. "No, that's a bad idea. If I don't join a guild, I'm not sure if any people will heal me if my health goes down low, and I wouldn't want to rush into something without knowing what the boss is like." The blonde was willing to take a few risks, but diving headfirst into something dangerous (Like Limbo's boss fight) would get him annihilated within two seconds of the fight. "Even though I'd have tier two gear, that doesn't mean the boss has damage higher than I can mitigate it. I remember reading that newspaper about the last fight, something about two deaths..."

[Ratatosk 0]

"Two deaths, that means there's a decent chance for me to be one of them if I joined. But also, the people who were in there were saved by healing items because people cared about them." Ratatosk brought down his fist in rage. "But does that mean you can value other's lives based on knowledge of their personality? Based on meaningless bull[censored] like friendship!" The blonde flipped the table and the tavern owner kicked him out. "Yeah yeah, [censored] assholes." He put his hands behind his head and began walking to the exit of the city, guess what? Campers again...

 

Edited March 30, 2016 by Ratatosk

[Ratatosk 0]

"Hey! Can you guys move a bit over to the left? I'm trying to get out of the town." The campers were fighting monsters really close to the town entrance, the guards were also helping them fight the monsters. "No way in hell dude! This is the best place to train." Indeed, it somewhat was, the boars were being killed by the guards and they'd get a good fraction of the experience. Ratatosk sighed and traveled to the west exit, "Finally, no campers." The blonde spotted Hideshido from the corner of his eye and turned again. "Nope, not walking out that exit."

[Ratatosk 0]

He arrived at the east exit of the city, but look who's there. "Hideshido, you [censored] asshole." It seemed like that guy was everywhere, he was waiting outside the safezone but his cursor was orange, what did that mean? "No way, it's gotta be a trap! He's trying to kill me, [censored]!" For the entire day, Ratatosk would not exit the town at all, he just had a gut feeling that Hideshido would lure him into a trap to his death. "Yup, and then he's gonna pants me too!" And he also loved pantsing for a weird reason, he was probably a pervert, or just a jerk.

[Ratatosk 0]

"Damnit, so boring in the safezone..." Ratatosk needed a bit of adventure for the day, but sadly the campers, PK'ers, and pantsers were blocking off every single exit available. "And there's no sewer system either, [censored]!" The warp zone was still working, so he could use that, but other floors weren't as big or pretty as the first. "Guess I should go see what gear is available in the markets, probably nothing useful anyways." The blonde walked to the market area of the city and saw a wide array of equipment, there were swords, accessories, and armor, but he couldn't afford anything.

[Ratatosk 0]

Ratatosk kept staring at a certain sword, "Holy crap, tier two... And the thing's beautiful..." The NPC who owned the market stall told him to "Buy something or get lost!" Which he later did after looking at it some more. "Jeez, I forgot how rude some NPCs were, and I still remember that one saying... What was it again? Oh, right. It was, 'It's all fun and games until somebody dies.' Yeah, that's the case with SAO, fun and games... Then people die." Death was the only motivation he needed to level up, right now he couldn't though since all the paths outside were blocked.

[Ratatosk 0]

"Alright alright, time to leave the market. Nothing I can afford, everything is way too expensive!" Ratatosk went back to his old bench, the night was young as the lower leveled players danced and had some fun. There were even some friendly duels between friends, they shouted with excitement when the battle was over and gave each other fist bumps. The blonde clapped his hands together multiple times, "Nice, that was awesome! You guys should be front liners!" They laughed together and the newbies responded, "Sorry, but we're only level four, we can't do that in a single day!"

[Ratatosk 0]

"Not going to try to be in the frontliners?" That was what he perceived them to say, "Well, I guess we can't all live a life of danger. Hope you two have fun on your journey. Good luck out there, and don't you die just yet." The blonde smiled and gave them a thumbs up before going to the south exit of the Town of Beginnings. "Finally! He's gone! Just gonna walk out the safezone just like this..." Ratatosk checked his inventory and pulled out a piece of bread, throwing it outside the safezone. A very creepy Hideshido sliced it in half midair and stared at Ratatosk, "Hey there, how you doing?"