Chapter 9: Part 4

- Arthas -

Over the next two hours, everyone went around checking the guild hall.

Meanwhile, we took a seat in one of the second floor rooms and looked outside the Guild windows and saw many people waiting outside.

"What do we do with them?" Shiroe asked.

"What can we do with them? The slots in our Guild are already taken and we have already accepted money from everyone. The best we can do is reserve seats for them when the Guild Level increases."

"I think it would be better to collect some money from them as a reservation charge. It will help us sieve out people who are just here to make trouble." Veena suggested.

"Hmm, that sounds good. At this point, I am sure many would agree. Just keep an eye out for the troublemakers."

"Even Gareth's team is there." Star pointed out towards one of the corners. "Are you going to call him for a trade?"

"Nah….let him stand there for an hour more. He will be the one to offer us the deal…"

"Exactly. Now you are learning." Veena nodded proudly. "We have the initiative now. Let them be the one to propose the trade from their side or we come on as desperate and they can use it to increase the price. Just make sure their names are registered in the Reserve List but they don't get recruited to the guild. Their names just stay at the bottom of the list."

"Got it."

And we did just that.

It was almost the time for our dinner and I was even tempted to sneak away just to see his face the next day.

- Akeno Himejima -

"Yay! I levelled up. I am now a Cleric. Onee-chan can make all your pains go away with her magic touch~"

She smiled as she watched Marielle dance around happily. 

Marielle was a tall, slender, and voluptuous girl. She had long, wavy green coloured hair, hazel-coloured eyes and an ever present smile on her face.

She was around six years or so older than Akeno and had just passed out of her university.

Marielle always had the way of making people laugh with her personality.

It was probably this personality of hers which attracted Akeno to her in the first place after she got separated from her friends and trapped in this world.

Despite her happy go lucky behaviour, Marielle was an extremely caring and kind person who actually wanted to do good for the people.

For example, while they hadn't seen anyone below twelve years of age in this game yet, probably due to the warnings by the game company, there were children who were just that old and completely scared out of their mind when they were caught in this whole mess.

There was also the less known fact that these kids had a Passive Skill called Puberty which gave them 20% more experience gains till the age of fourteen. For this reason many of them chose production classes and levelled up faster than most adults.

But this was not enough as many people paid very less for their services, far lesser than they would for other adults.

It was so bad in some cases that it became difficult for the kids to even earn enough to feed themselves.

Marielle purposely took quests which took her to the beginner villages and brought these children to their town so that they could be kept in the orphanages and their team often distributed food for these kids.

She then went on to establish an organisation where these kids could work and not be exploited.

Currently, this organisation has twenty three kids from all eight villages around their town and they finally had a place to grow stably.

One would think that they would lag behind other teams due to all their extra activities?

Well they would be wrong.

They were by no means weaker than any team in the city.

They made up for the lost time by putting in more effort when levelling. Their team often hunted for extra hours to make up for the time they spent helping others and their dedication soon reached other people too who began donating and helping out the kids as well.

And all this was started by one person's thoughtful effort.

For this alone, Akeno respected the captain of her team a lot.

"Oho. Would that include the pain in my heart too?" Naotsugu asked with a hand over his heart in mock pain.

"Eh, Nao-kun. Are you in pain? What happened? Did you get rejected by another girl?" She smirked.

"Ah….the pain just increased. Akeno-chan, you are really ruthless." He pretended to fall.

Marielle on the other hand kneeled beside his fallen form and actually checked him. "Hah, you can always come to me, you know. So, what would it take to heal your broken heart? A hug, a kiss or….so-me-th-in-g more~"

Poor Naotsugu became red with her teasing and backed away quickly, laughing awkwardly.

Quite an irony that their main tank, the self proclaimed 'warrior of panties', was weak on the defensive….or at least weak to Marielle's attacks.

"Pervert." Their fourth member whispered on her side, glaring at the fallen man.

Akatsuki was an adorable girl who reminded Akeno too much of Koneko. Even her height and age were the same as her adorable kouhai, as was her intolerance for anything remotely perverted and being called short.

Their team had been formed by coincidence.

She had encountered Marielle in the beginner's village from where they journeyed to the nearby town together.

On the way they had met Akatsuki who was fighting off some wild animals by herself and assisted the girl, earning another team member and finally they had met Naotsugu in the town.

Both Naotsugu and Marielle had some mutual friends in the previous games they had played and despite his usual behaviour, he is apparently a very good person and an incredible player too so Marielle recruited him.

He didn't disappoint them either as he was like a wall, taking all the damage and yet remained firm.

It's just that he, being an open pervert, was always on the receiving end of Akatsuki's beatings. Not that he took any offence to it.

If anything, he was proud of it.

"Can you be less of a pervert for just one day, pervert?" Akatsuki sniped at him.

"Hahahaha every guy is a pervert at heart, Akatsuki-chan. If they are not open perverts, they are closet perverts. You should be more wary of the second kind."

"Shut up!"

And there they went at it again.

Then again, it was this bickering and playful banter that kept her mind off more painful things like their current situation and the worries of how the rest of her peerage members were….if they were even….

No.

She shouldn't let these thoughts take root in her mind and disrupt her resolve.

Akeno was going to become stronger and find all her family members in this game….and bring them all out of this alive.

Rias, Koneko, Gasper….just wait.

- Arthur Pendragon -

He sent the final slash at the monster, finally killing the boar that he had been fighting all this time.

As the monster fell, he looked at his sword with worry.

"This is not going to last long. I need to get back to the village to restock and get another sword."

Sigh.

The game was turning out to be completely different than he had imagined.

He had imagined a place where everyone would be continuously fighting against each other for the whims of the Game Master and while it was still the same….he wasn't expecting it to be this….game–like.

Levels, Equipment, Classes, Skills….it was totally like the rpg games which he had played during his childhood.

And yet, even with all the game-like factors, sometimes Arthur couldn't help but feel as if this place was a completely new world. It just felt….too real.

Whether it be the NPCs or animals in the forest, the way they reacted was just too real for Arthur to consider this as something else.

He stored the animals in his inventory and checked the area before slowly tracing his way back.

Arthur's journey in this world in the last two weeks hadn't been very easy either.

The village was mostly full of casual players who were content with doing basic quests and hunting easier prey, not going out to risk their lives against stronger foes.

This meant that all easier quests around the village were always taken and he had to risk his life on harder quests to level up.

His experience did carry him through the beginner's period but not everything was so simple.

When some people noticed that he was levelling up quicker, they started pestering him for 'Protection Charges' and what not, basically a way to extort money out of him.

Arthur knew that he was no match for these thugs who were quite a bit above his level so he bore with them for a few days before planning a way around them.

He lured them with the promise of a false treasure which he had encountered on a quest and led them to the den of a mutated animal in the forest.

Those people were obviously no match for the vicious T3 and were almost wiped out but not before severely weakening the animal.

Arthur also got a strike in and that gained him a new T2 Job, Militia and several levels of the Class too.

Currently, he was going back to the village after staying inside for three days.

He planned to restock and then leave for the nearest town to check for better places to hunt.

As he trekked his way back to the village, his thoughts went to Ley Fay and Eliane.

How were they?

Where even in the world were they?

He hadn't even been aware of the random spawn of the players and that put a heavy damper on his plans to rescue his sister. Now even Eliane was stranded somewhere in this world, who knows how and all he could do was hope that they would be well.

No.

He needed to get stronger and he needed to get stronger faster to find his family in this world.

He wondered if Kuroka was having a better time than him in her search for her sister in this world.

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Author's Note:

Another chapter of 'Soul Art Online' is up.

The duel is over and as expected, Arthas trashes the opponent with ease.

Veena, as expected of the devil, dragged the guy into debt for his misconduct against her. [Beta Note: A Toad trying to eat Swan meat, heh.]

We got to see Akeno and Arthur's pov which tells us about how their lives have been so far inside the game.

Next time maybe we will see Grayfia's pov and some regular game progress as we explore the new Manslayer Class and hunt with new teammates.

There is also the trade with Gareth and the challenges of managing a new guild.

People are stupid and someone is bound to cause trouble and then get beaten up for it.

Enjoy the new chapter.

Good Day, Peace Out.