No more time to waste

With the thump of the rock I could hear Mito begin charging up her scythe skill, it's a skill that slashes horizontally but also sends the user forward a great deal. Grass flew from Mito's kick off and counting down the timing in my head I opened my eyes at the last second. Her scythe was steadily approaching my right side and I smirked, she was locked in this motion after all.

Using my body to its full potential of its flexibility and no muscles to strain I bent forward at the waist and let my legs split until my stomach was inches from the ground. I kicked my left leg around and sweeped Mito's legs and rose with the spin of my motion.

She tried to catch herself but she was still frozen in the cooldown of her skill and I took advantage of that. As she fell I was once again standing and per the rules one by nicking her shin with the tip of my blade.

"Good now that that's over you both will be going through my training." I said as i sheathed my sword and looked over the battle results. The game gave me some col and a little xp for the duel but not enough to really matter.

"No, I don't accept this. I want a rematch!" Mito shouted as she stood up and I just looked at her with a dumbfounded expression.

"Why would we do that? You didn't even come close to hitting me." She stomped in indignation.

"Yes I was! My scythe was inches away before you ducked under it. What kind of coward does that?" She asks to what I assume is to make me angry, but I don't rise to it.

"So what?" I ask instead.

"Huh?" Now it was her turn to look at me dumbfounded so I continued.

"So what if it's cowardly? I won the duel. Let me rephrase this actually. Mito, what kind of game is SAO?" I asked while taking the moment to lay back on the grass, they didn't lay down like me but both her and Asuna did sit down when they realized I wasn't going to be doing anymore dueling.

"It's a VRMMO? But what does that have to do with anything?" She asked still not knowing where I was going with it.

"What's one of the biggest draws to a MMO besides dungeons and boss fights?" She thought about for a second and smiled triumphantly as she said.

"Dueling or PVP." I nodded my head as soaked up the sun with my eyes closed. This was a feeling I never got to experience in the real world, so now I was going to take advantage of it as much as I could.

"Precisely. Now take knowledge and it to the fact that in this game if you die, you die in real life. Cowardly and cheap tactics in any other game is just how you live in this game. Besides dodging is part of it all, you're just mad I beat you so easily."

She had been nodding her head but then froze I'm slight embarrassment and scratched her cheek while looking away. However Asuna was the one that spoke up.

"Uh, I don't know much about these MMO's well anything at all actually. But why do we have to worry about duels and player on player combat? Nobody is going to want to risk killing another person." I opened my eyes and saw the complicated expression on Mito's face that probably mirrored my own as I sat up with my arms draped over my raised knees.

"You think too highly of people." I muttered and though reluctantly Mito agreed.

"He's right Asuna, people in games are used to be scum because they could hide behind their screens and nobody could really call them out on it." I continued for her.

"This game is slightly different with player morality or whatever symbol above our heads. Green for good, orange for troublemaker and red… well red is reserved for player killers."

Asuna gasped and covered her mouth as Mito just nodded morosely staring at the grass.

"But surely nobody would kill each other right? I mean we have to all work together to get out of here!" I smiled a little sadly as I glanced at her.

"You would think that, but I wouldn't be so sure." Instead of continuing the conversation I rolled backwards and in one swift motion was back on my feet.

"Alright, enough of all this talk we really don't have anymore time to waste if we want to get significantly ahead of the other players so that we don't have to worry about all that. Both your training starts now. I'm sure it will be difficult for Mito since she's played close to the same amount as me, but Asuna this should be fairly easy for you to grasp."

Asuna looked to Mito who was still staring at the grass before she slapped her cheeks and shot up to give me a slight glare.

"Very well, but if I feel like your 'training' is hindering more than helping then I'll go back to training Asian and fighting my own way." She said with determination and I just shrugged with a nod.

"That's fine, but I have the utmost confidence you'll see the benefits."

"Humph, well lead the way oh wise master." Mito intoned sarcastically, so I played along by patting her head as I walked past her with a smile.

"Please follow closely pitiful disciple and don't disturb the promising prodigy beside you."

She sputtered in surprise and did so again when she heard Asuna laughing at her side.

"Asuna! I thought we were friends?" She cried, but it was obvious it was only half hearted. We were starting to banter like a true group of friends and that would only bolster our chemistry. Making us better friends, but also keeping us alive in our future fights.

"Don't worry Misumi, I'm sure you and Kabi can become great friends after all-" she ended what she said in a whisper for Mito's ears only and due to the surprised look in her face it was something she wasn't expecting.

"No Asuna! You have the wrong idea!" She shouted at first and then mumbled latter as she did everything to look away from me. Before I could ask anything she started pushing me from behind with a laughing Asuna at her back.

"You said it pretty boy, we don't have anymore time to waste so get a move on." Not feeling like pursuing her awkward actions I just shrugged and started walking under my own force and began increasing speed into a jog and then a run.

"Then let's get going and do try to keep up." I seen the both nod from over my shoulder and we continued on my mapped out path that I had already ran through once today. I could feel a smile on my face as we ran, Mito behind me and Asuna beside her just a half step behind.

This was one of the first times I had ever really interacted with people my own age. Well maybe we were the same age, I'm 17 but I guess Amane never told me how old her sister was. She doesn't look younger than me, though Asuna may be a year or 2 younger. I wonder how they met? Upper and lower class-men at a high school maybe?

Oh well that's not really important, we need to reach Horunka as fast as possible and with 3 of us we won't have to slow down too much. Just the training and practice will slow our progress, but I feel the Nepenthes will be a better training dummy than the wolves and boars. After all they have vines you have cut off or dodge and will make perfect practice.

"If we keep this pace we will reach Horunka by nightfall." I spoke over my shoulder while still running.

"Isn't already 6 o'clock? It'll get dark soon." Asuna responded to which me and Mito shook our heads simultaneously and she was the one that responded.

"No the game time is a few hours behind the real world time. Where it was 1 when everyone could log on it was only 9 here in the game world. You can see the separate clock if you change it in your settings." I picked up from there.

"It'll probably be worth it to get rid of the real world clock so it doesn't clutter the HUD." Only Asuna shook her head.

"I think I'll keep it on for now. I'll be able to think about what my family or friends might be doing when I read the time on it." She said sadly and just nodded while remaining silent. While I was happy to be here I needed to remember that others were going to need to hold on to anything they could from the real world to stay sane.

"Next pack coming up." I called after a couple more minutes of running.

"Another Alpha pack?! How did you find 1 let alone 2?" I just smiled wryly at Mito's question.

"Like I said, I ran the first few floors of this world over and over again. We'll hit 7 more alpha packs before we reach Horunka. Now you guys are up, let me see what I'm working with.

~~~~~~~~~~~~chapter end~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Idk if I posted it in this fic or my other fic but my upload schedule is every Tuesday- Wednesday's, and this may increase to include thursdays when I go part time at work.

I know not much really happened, but it felt like a necessary chapter imo. Next chapter will be Horunka and the farming of nepenthes/possibly meeting Kirito. Haven't fully decided how I'm going to write that yet.

Anyways until next time.