Chapter 12 – Weapons of Choice and Adaptation

Third person POV

 After that, Roxas and his friends, while walking around the ward, were again greeted by the same hologram screens from last time, congratulating them for registering into the game and into a guild and reminding them to get their first weapons for survival. The place where they can buy weapons is a store called the Blades Shop. That medieval-style store is located near the station. So, the four of them went there according to the directions given by the hologram screens. There they gazed at its exterior.

The store is medieval-style and rustic-looking.

 "Wow…" Minato commented in amazement.

 "This one is nice…" Roxas added with an imitated version of the British accent.

And so, all four of them entered in, seeing all kinds of bladed weapons available.

 "Wow…" Roxas commented while he and his friends stood in front of the door inside.

 The four friends then started choosing their first bladed weapons. To be more convenient, the currency used for the game is called Gold Yen. The prices of the blades and swords available varied by material and properties. Some cost 1,000 Gold Yen, while the most expensive ones clocked in at 7,000 Gold Yen. So, Roxas saw a sword that cost 1,100 Gold Yen. It looked cool to him, so he took it. Shuto found a sword that had the same price but had different looks on its handle and blade design.

 "That one is really a pen as a blade…" he commented, before grabbing it.

Minato, meanwhile, found a very cool halberd for 1,250 Gold Yen and grabbed it, thinking that it was really cool for him.

And as for Koyuki, she picked a dual-headed axe for 1,000 Gold Yen.

The four friends then gathered in the center of the floor of the store and compared each other's new and potential weapons.

Roxas' sword was nice and cool, while Minato's halberd was considered sick and awesome.

 So, they went out to the counter to pay for them. Luckily, each of them had a lot of Gold Yen, which were converted from the regular Japanese Yen money they had on hand. So, Roxas and his friends paid for them and left the store after that, walking back to their guild for any quest available for them. However, upon arriving there, they were told that they could not go on a quest until 24 hours of real time had passed. This indicated that Roxas and his friends were newly registered in that guild and needed to wait a whole day before they would be allowed to go on quests.

 So, the four friends from the same school left and went around Kanagawa ward, as well as the other nearby wards to pass the time. Along the way, they met up with other players of different levels, ranks, and types and interacted with most of them. Roxas has some difficulty with interaction with them in Japanese, but his friends helped out by interpreting his English lines into Japanese ones. The four friends also received tips and clues of how the game works from them.

 At lunchtime, they went to a Japanese sushi restaurant to eat a nice lunch. After that, Roxas and his friends continued to go around doing normal stuff and even tried to get their hands on training for preparation for tomorrow's possible quests and challenges. Their first 1 hour of training is crappy, but Minato, a gamer of action games, gave them some basic, general tips for it. Roxas listened very well.

 By 3:13 p.m., all of them returned to their shared house home. But all this time, Evil Kirito and his friends, who were informed by their entry into the game by the game's system, are watching them from the Tower, which is the game's tower. Back at their home, Minato played his usual video game on TV, but the game, which is now more like a mini-game in terms of graphics, now looked drastically different, much to his chagrin. Roxas, meanwhile, was in his room thinking about how to adapt in this new, gaming world.

 Then, the young foreign student began to think about his family back in the Philippines, his home country. His family consisted of two parents, one older sister, and two younger siblings. Because of their love and care for him, Roxas was determined and motivated to adapt and survive in this game, boosting his personal morale more. But within him, the spirit that went into him is now looking at his memories, being amazed by his cultural background and upbringing.