[F-02] [SP] Hunting Poison <<The Venomous Warg>>

[Tsurei 0]

There was a lengthy silence between them as they finished off the remnants of their breakfast, their appetites noticeably dulled. From the side, even Rossa knew something was up but didn’t feel all that up to asking them about it, from there, the group spoke just to fill the silence between them, chatting about their plans for the day as well as how they were handling their skills and stats,

“I just levelled Katana up to Expert, so I’ve got some more sword arts to test out,” Rei explained with a small glint of anticipation,

“I’m been trying to level Light Armour and get some Mods for it,” Yuta went through the options he chose, it seemed he was trying to shore up his defensive stats,

“My er… 1 Handed Sword is up to Journeyman, same with my shield and heavy armour…” Kenji noted uncertainly, flicking through his HUD to make sure,

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“Well, we’re certainly getting there, once we have our most used skills at the max level, we can start seeing about ways to branch out,” Rei leaned back on his chair, relaxing and closing down the menu,

“Hm, things like stealth and detection look really good, it’d help when it comes to fighting in the dark it seems…” Yuta noted idly,

“Yeah… but at the same time, with combat being the focus of the game, it’s kinda difficult to do something other than optimise for combat,”

“Maybe…” Yuta glanced over to the clock in the corner of his UI, “Hey, it’s around time, should I go get Takuma or should you?”

“Feel free to go get him for me,” Rei smiled, leaning back further in his chair in a show of relaxation, forcing Yuta to give a wry smile and get up,

“Fine, I’ll go then,”

As per usual, they allowed Takuma to sleep in until noon before they forcibly dragged his ass down from his bed and started their lazy journey over to the portal and out of the 2^nd floor.

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Arriving back in the old medieval city, they slowly began to walk forward,

“So, we have to find this merchant npc in one of the pubs here?” Takuma groaned, summarising their current task, with less than normal enthusiasm,

“Yeah, it’s another pub crawl,” Kenji nodded, mimicking the lack of desire to visit every pub in town as they did during the weekend in search of ingredients for what was ultimately an extravagant dinner, it really put them through some trouble that lasted the entire day after all,

“I thought you of all people would be delighted,” Yuta raised a brow, glancing over at his friend who was nursing a painful hangover from having several strong drinks from every single pub they ended up visiting, he was also the person who drank the most and consequently was the one who had to pay by vomiting constantly, even now, he looked queasy and the portal teleportation didn’t help matters.

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“Yeah no. I think I’m put off alcohol for a while, especially vodka… urp… just remembering it is… erk… blegh…” Takuma’s sentence was cut off by choking and gagging noises, culminating in him running to the side of the street to escape into an alleyway, projectile vomit shooting out of his mouth before he could fully art into the darkness to hide his unsightly condition,

“Noted,” Rei smiled wryly, “Maybe this time you won’t forget about your aversion within the week,” his dry comment caused Yuta to chuckle a little,

“In any case, I have a good idea of which pub the merchant npc might be in,” he added,

“Really?” Kenji looked over to Yuta hopefully,

“Yeah, he should be in the southern side of the city, we don’t need to bother with the rest of the city, since he only ever spawns in a certain area,”

“Gotcha,” Rei nodded, noting down the information in his mind before glancing at Takuma,

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“…I hope he’ll be alright…” Kenji murmured worriedly, after all, they would have to fight today, and being sick like that was definitely going to be bad.

“He’ll be fine… probably,” Rei shrugged nonchalantly, after all, he could only count himself lucky that he himself didn’t have to deal with such a horrible hangover like Takuma did, but at the same did, he really did let himself go a little too loose last weekend, he supposed they never actually drank any alcohol ever since they got here,

“Besides, with his shield, all he has to do is get hit to deal damage to enemies,” Yuta nodded, patting Kenji on the shoulder re-assuredly, a small hint of jealously and envy in his tone,

“Right…” Kenji detected the note and simply looked at the pair of them unconvincingly,

“Anyway, let’s get started on the search then, we’ll split up to make things easier, just send a message when you find it,” Rei waved with a smile, splitting off from the party,

[Tsurei 0]

Yuta went his own way with a militaristic salute acknowledgement of the plan, meanwhile Kenji went to stay by Takuma’s side a little longer, despite the attempts to split up, he would find himself unable to leave Takuma’s side since he could barely stand and walk upright down the street in his current state.

Rei walked through the streets of the city with a small smile on his face, wryly thinking about his friends and how they almost never change in all the years he’s known them, if anything, Yuta is probably the only one’s who’ve changed the most, before they befriended him for some time, he was a rather devout religious boy who was too timid to stand up for himself against bullies, then he hit the rebellious phase.

“Seriously, we’ve barely changed at all,” he chuckle once more whilst mumbling under his breath, it’s been nearly 10 years and they seem to be themselves still, even after it all.

[Tsurei 0]

“Anyway, enough errant thoughts, let’s get searching,” Rei shook his head to try and gather his thoughts and focus on the task at hand, as he began to walk down the streets he noticed a pair of npcs he supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised to see, it was the mother and child from the dark cave quest on the second floor, the mother and daughter appeared to be on a outing shopping for groceries,

He didn’t think to say anything to them as he walked past them, after all, it wasn’t uncommon for a game system to use identical npcs to fill in the crowd, but at the same time, he can’t really say he’s seen the same person all that many times…

So consider him shocked when the daughter pointed at him,

“It’s you! The nice mister Adventurer that saved me!”

“Huh?” Rei stopped in his tracks, looking left and right for the source in disbelief,

“Mom, mom! It’s him!” the daughter tugged at her mother’s hand, pulling her attention over,

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“Oh my, it really is you!” the mother gasped, pulling a hand to cover her open mouth before the pair walked on over to greet him properly,

“Hello mister!” the girl waved cheerfully,

“Good morning sir,” the mother gave a small polite bow on the other hand, “I’m sorry, we never introduced ourselves, I’m Irena, and this is Marta,”

“Hello!”

“Ah, right, I don’t think we introduced ourselves either, I’m Rei,” he introduced himself back in reflexive response, quickly drawing up a small smile as best as he could, still, he was confused and impressed, did the system really store memories like that for simple npcs like this? It couldn’t be…

“Rei-san… are you going somewhere today as well?” Irena smiled, tilting her head gently, engaging in pleasant conversation,

“Y-yeah, we’re planning on hunting some wolves and venomous wargs out in the forest later today,” he nodded back, explaining his purpose here,

“My, that sounds dangerous,”

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“It’s uh… par for the course, we’ll be fine against just wolves,” Rei quickly found himself reassuring the woman to not worry about him and his friends, there was Rossa and her family and now these two, just how advance was the AI? It was getting a little ridiculous…

“hm! Mister is really strong, probably,” Marta cheerfully supported him but gave a uncertain ending,

“What do you mean probably?” Rei pouted, crouching down to narrow his eyes at Marta in a playful accusation,

“Well, I mean… I couldn’t see anything in the cave when you saved me,” she pouted right back, more so than he could attempt and glanced away, giving her excuse,

“I suppose you’re right,” Rei shrugged and relented, “Well, it was nice to meet you two again, I hope you two stay well and out of trouble,” he flashed a small smile and intended to say his farewells here,

[Tsurei 0]

Turning around, he continued on his way, giving the pair a wave of his hand, when he looked away, he let the smile on his face drop off like taking off a mask, it’s less that the smile wasn’t genuine, but it was more that Rei couldn’t smile for long periods of time without being tired or feeling like an idiot.

As he walked down the street, his eyes casually scanned the pair, honing on any sort of wooden sign for a tavern that protruded from the few establishments in the area, he only noticed the people around enough to dodge around the crowds, but as he moved he noticed a few players here and there and he also caught sight of a figure scurrying in the alleyways, clad in a black cloak and in a hurry.

His eyes narrowed only slightly at the strange sight, but he didn’t stop nor did he really think too much about it until he walked past the opening and looked in, seeing the cloaked figure’s black running away into the distance, a strange emblem of a coffin on their back.

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His eyes casually glanced upwards before widening in surprise, this guy… was a player, with an orange cursor. Something which only happens if the player has committed a crime, and the most common crime out here was in fact, murder.

This realisation caused Rei to stop in his tracks, staring seriously down the alleyway for only a moment before the figure already disappeared around the next corner.

“… I guess that has nothing to do with me,” he murmured to himself, faintly hoping that nothing would come of this as he continued to search for pubs.

Considering that the theme in this city was a European medieval look, all the taverns were similar to the Silver Horned Inn that they stayed at on the first floor, a rarity there, but rather common place over here, ale stained, creaky wooden floorboards, wooden furnishings with tables and stools, a number of rugged looking npcs hanging around in groups loudly ordering food and drink causing the simple bar maid to run around the place actively, a few shady looking npcs sipping drinks in the corners whilst giving everyone that comes in the narrowed stare.

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A corner of the Inn would have some kind of bard or musician, playing an instrument to give the whole inn some remnant of vitality and vibrancy with their old school and jaunty tune, often times a simple wooden cup would be on the floor in front of them to serve as a tip box.

Rei went through a number of these pubs until he finally came across one that was rather different, firstly, the bar here was a player, an attractive young girl with fair, nearly verging on pale flawless skin, she had long, straight cut, black hair that reached down to her waist, despite it’s lack of accessories or perhaps because of it’s plainness, it looked strangely doll like in their perfection, her eyes on the other hand matched it to an eerie degree, a pair of icy pale blue eyes that seemed to only momentarily glance over to his entrance with utmost disinterest.

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She soon closed her eyes back to concentrate on playing the guitar, strumming the strings and playing a strangely melancholy tune, which was no doubt the source and cause of the remarkable sombre and solemn mood in the tavern.

Rei’s gaze lingered on her for a little longer, in no small part due to her beauty, but also because he found it strange, why was a player taking their time to perform in a normal npc’s tavern? As far as he could tell, there wasn’t even a tip cup, she was playing simply for music’s sake.

As his brow furrowed and he studied her a little further, he took note of her clothing, a simple one piece dress with the bare minimum of frills to make her look dressed up, coloured a dark blue and  black, the colour of midnight with small white dots to resemble the stars of the night sky. She looked absolutely stunning but at the same time she gave off a chilling air that made it impossible to even think of approaching her, she didn’t care about any of them and her aura was like a chilled shard of ice or a taut, tense wire. Ready to draw blood at any interference.

[Tsurei 0]

Despite her dainty appearance, Rei had no disillusion that she wasn’t perfectly capable of defending herself. With that in mind, the best thing to do is to get away and avoid dangerous things, as such, he continued to move his gaze around the room, until his eyes fell upon a man sitting at a corner, a merchant looking man who had a large,        lazy build, with brownish skin and a thick beard, he wore a loose fitting purple outerwear with a bright orange tunic and a red furred cap.

As it was, he had his face half buried in his hands with a look of despair and worry, he seemed like the target, but just as he was about to approach to make sure he suddenly received a message.

Halting in his steps caused him to waver for a moment as he flicked through the menu to take a look, it was from Yuta;

[Tsurei 0]

[G3-52. Fight. Help]

It took Rei a moment of puzzlement before he figured out it’s meaning, it was Yuta’s coordinates, the situation and problem, it was short, concise and very much like him, he imagined if he was in a fight, he wouldn’t have the time to write out a full message, he was currently engaged in combat with someone at those locations and were warning them so they could come help him.

A fight in the city? Was that even possible? And would it kill him to explain the situation just a little bit more? … Yeah, it probably actually would.

Whatever, think about it later!

With that in mind, grabbed the blue katana on his waist to make sure it was there before sprinting back out into the streets and through them, the digital 2d map open in the corner of his vision with his beeping icon, showing him where he was, he couldn’t see any accurate information of his friends or his party members, only showing what floor they were on. But if they were on screen, he imagine the three of them were converging on Yuta’s location as fast as they could, as averse to fighting Takuma and Kenji were, they would never let a friend be in trouble alone.

[Tsurei 0]

His feet thumped and cracked steadily like drums upon the cobblestone and dirt under him, kicking up small stones and dust in his wake, the npcs in his path moved out of the way, staring after him and whispering to each other wondering what was going on.

In Rei’s ears, all he could hear was his own breathing and the pounding of his heart, something inside him felt squeezed in tension, worried about this friend and the cloud of uncertainty whirling around his stomach.

Just what was going on here? Is he alright? Is it a killer?

Whatever the case, he could only hope everything was alright and would hold together until he got there.

As he sprinted through the block, he suddenly looked up towards the sky, towards the direction of the clashing of steel and combat, coupled by the surprised cry of npcs, the fighting was close. He increased his pace and swerved through the tighter, narrow alleyways to get to his destination faster.

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When he got there, he found the most ridiculous sight he’s ever seen. Right in the middle of the street, were two people engaged in frantic combat, on one side was a vibrant girl with crimson hair, cut in a short bob and with a wide grin on her face, she was the very definition of boundless energy and cheer, that is, if she wasn’t currently pummelling his friend into the ground and into the various carts and stalls along the street, causing fruit and other produce to fly into the air in the chaos.

The girl had fair skin and wore minimal armour, if anything, it more resembled a martial robe or outfit with only a few bits of armour, he couldn’t tell if it was just for show or actual armour but either would be a normal conclusion. By all means, she looked like an attractive girl, who probably perfectly fit the idea of the star of the track club at school, which only made it all the more jarring with the situation in front of him.

Yeah, this was a game where combat was the main focus, and with death fully realised, every fight was to the death.

[Tsurei 0]

His eyes drifted around as he watched Yuta parry one of her punches with his forearm, delivering a stab with his dagger into the girl’s stomach which didn’t connect as the girl smacked the arm aside. An exchange of parries, feints and strikes followed, each one sounded different, the whish of the wind for feints without contact, a loud slap of skin and flesh for the parries as they usually aimed to strike the arm to the side, and the booming thuds of impacts or bladed tearing of flesh whenever a punch of a weapon landed.

Looking over, Rei could barely see that their health bars were definitely dropping from each attack, this was a full on fight and not just the bounce back from attacks made in safe zones, whilst those dealt no damage, it still felt like a numbed pain, it was something they realised after messing around with each other playfully the other day.

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Second thing to note, was that the both of them had green cursors, meaning neither one had attacked the other unjustly, moreover, a real fight with dropping health in a safe zone could only mean a duel in the first place.

But a duel needed to be consented to by both parties for it to go through, what was going on here? Yuta would never randomly accept a duel and then ask for help through an brief, emergency message that he probably made during the combat.

So he was surprised enough that he was forced to make a message in the middle of combat and before, meaning he didn’t have time to prepare.

How was this happening?

When Yuta’s eyes made contact with Rei’s, he knew this was no time to wait. Holding his waist, in the form of glittering blue, digital diamonds, his katana materialised in it’s place, allowing him to draw the blade with a raspy drawn steel, adding a new sound to the symphony of chaotic battle as he resolved to barrel in and see how this would go.

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Running forward,  Rei tried out one of his newer Sword Arts, first was Haku Senpu, his now strongest art from attaining Level 4 Katana, translating to White Whirlwind, the attack allowed him to draw his blade through the air in rotational movements, this of course meant he had to be nimble on his feet even as he ran forward to keep mobility, the entire art’s purpose seemed to be focused on applying a constantly moving strike that flowed in elegant waves and strokes, akin to an artist’s pen strokes, combining with his katana, it manifested as drawing beautifully clear arcs of water through the air, swirling behind him before he arrived at the scene.

The red haired girl seemed to hear the new set of footsteps coming, along with the rising wind from the art, turning around to see Rei, she felt shocked that anyone would even try to interrupt a duel between two people, this was a game with concrete rules, but as time went on, these rules started to fade, npcs that seemed like people, murders within safe zones, it was no longer safe to rely on preconceived motions.

Edited March 11, 2020 by Tsurei