Chapter 11: Run like the wind~

"Ohh! So the town looks like this〜!" Risa looked around with an excited face, Kaede and Gram giggled at the sight of their friend intaking the realism. It's clear that it might be her first time in a VR game, although she might have tried a bad one before.

Risa turned around at them, seeing their unique outfits made her eyes widen.

"You two… oh-to... the aura is really different~! Looks like I would have to up my game, just looking at the two of you makes me a little intimidated." Risa rephrased her words, not calling them their names and understood to call them their in-game names.

"Ahaha, well~ you only have beginner's equipment. You'll easily follow up, once you get a gear yourself, you're a gamer after all." Gram motivated her easily followed up by Kaede while cupping her hands.

"That's right! Don't worry, I will protect Sally!" Kaede said while they added both as friends, and when they made a party, Risa showed her status.

Sally

Lv: 1

HP: 32/32

MP: 35/35

[ STR: 10〈＋11〉]

[ VIT: 0 ]

[ AGI: 55〈＋5〉]

[ DEX: 25 ]

[ INT: 10 ]

Equipments:

Head [ ーーー ]

Body [ ーーー ]

Right hand [ Beginners Short Sword ]

Left Hand [ ーーー ]

Legs [ ーーー ]

Shoes [ Beginner's Magic Shoes ]

Accessories [ ーーー ]

[ ーーー ]

[ ーーー ]

Skills:

None

"You didn't get a buckler?" Gram asked. Since he thought she would want to get just for the sake of it. It seems what she gets in the future would be her second equipment.

"I wanted to but I changed my mind since you two asked me to reconsider it." Risa lightly scratched her cheeks, Kaede heard what she said and that made her hug her friend tightly.

"H~ey.. don't be so clingy!" Risa turned a little embarrassed but she didn't deny her friend's intimate skinship.

"Yeah~ and really raised many types of status huh." Kaede parted with a satisfied smile.

Risa who heard her didn't know what to say, after all, Kaede didn't know how to make an optimal' build.

Her stats had been advantageous to her out of nonsensical coincidence but for others, it won't be easily replicated if they didn't have the skills or the stats points to start with.

If she said that in the forums or in public, she might have gotten reprimanded due to her naiveness.

Risa tsukkomi with a light chop on Kaede's head, "You know~ that's a normal thing to do in RPG games. Maximizing one stat surely would come handy but that's only effective in certain situations, having alternate means does give many chances to achieve better success. Albeit, it might be different for the two of you."

Different from her, Risa had always thought level-headed. She followed the rules and tried to improve it with her learned knowledge. Sometimes, with that understanding in every part of the game gives her much advantage towards other players.

Gram approached with a laugh and due to Kaede's utter demise, before patting her head while saying, "What Sally said was right, but for this game, freedom is a particular thing on it's way. You can follow the game by using the definitions the developers had paved way or you can try something by yourself. Not limiting from the common information but by carrying out and creatively using a different perspective, without following the basics that may give you unexpected results. She's an example, our ditzy girl here~"

Kaede cutely said while smiling, "Ehe~he.. I just tried not to be hurt, though..."

Although, doing that could presume as inconvenience to the developers, but in one way, it is a way for them finding out what could be done or not. At the same time, they would allow you to continue with that path, until they deal with it in the future. Though, he hoped they wouldn't hamper them in the near future. It's different from using exploit or hacking, it's discovering all the existing unbalanced features of the game, which they couldn't easily remove from the game, unless they rooted out the feature entirely.

An example were [ Spell Creation ] and many skills Gram had, or [ Absolute Defense ] and few of Kaede's skills. Overall, the problem rests on their skills and stats ability that synergize efficiently.

Kaede then inquired, "But aren't our stats build like that? Isn't it advantageous in many events? We could just help her in gaining skills after all it isn't that difficult."

Gram smiled and pressed her cheeks with a finger, "That's for us, not hers, although, I somewhat don't agree with her not maximizing to one stat but if she want's variability then it's up to her. The skills are sure to give stat rewards and allocation but for now, she just wants to be a variable player that could be called an 'all-rounder'."

"Un~ I understand." Kaede nodded cutely, but she clearly didn't understand the last part.

Risa heard before about the skills they gained, instead of getting the same skills, she will try and use it as an input to gain different skills unique to herself.

She nodded with crossed arms, "Yeah! That's right! Even if I dodge everything, how do you think I'm supposed to damage if I don't allocate to STR? I know HP and VIT aren't needed right! I'm still not sure if I'm going to use magic, it's better for you since you're a magical-based attack that increases damage based only on INT while Maple is reliant on her VIT. As for me, I could choose both physical or magic based attack patterns, since it purely relies on STR or INT while increasing DEX for critical chance and damage and also, increasing the attack speed. I also boosted STR so that I could use other weapons. Albeit, the main stats I would be improving is AGI since it would give me movement speed and dodge/evade chances that I really need."

If she didn't do so, it would limit her real ability. That's why it's better for her to utilize the distribution effectively, it's so she can be adaptive.

"Sally's thinking a lot huh〜" Kaede said with a cute giggle. She only needed to raise her VIT after levelling up, so she doesn't need to think about anything. Her STR also increased on it's own, so it isn't to say that she didn't have any damage at all. At best, she only has to manage her gears and skills which clearly made it easier for the simple-minded.

"That's Ris- Sally... You know she always plans out her move before doing something~"

Risa smiled, "Fufufu… there are a lot of things needed to be thought about compared to a person who only takes zero damage to attacks. Now that I mentioned it… you two got rewards from the last event right?"

Risa remembered they participated in the event and might have gained the equipment that she had seen on the website.

"That was a commemoration medal. I was expecting that it might've been an equipment though since they said so~" Kaede got the medal and showed it to Risa.

"An equipment should be given to the first ranker since I didn't get one as well, though I had a medal too. The medal should be exchangeable in the future, since the token exchange shop would be enabled in the next update." He had been looking out for news and notes to the update which really excites him.

"Eh? Really?! That's great!" Kaede's eyes lit up which made Risa and Gram look at each other with wry smiles. To Kaede, her priority right now might be to acquire skills in the game.

"That's a good thing. So now, where are we going? Should we go to the place you said before? The Underground Lake?" Risa asked. Since they were in the party, as the leader, he had been designated to the role.

Gram nodded, he told about their visit about the Underground Lake while Kaede played with her fingers and looked down with a hint of blush on her face.

"Umm~"

"If it's you then, you could easily travel underwater." He told her about the dungeon which excited her, quickly accepted and took the role of exploring it.

"If it's only that then, leave it to me! I have a great idea… before I do so..."

Risa told about sprinting towards the destination but with the two's nonexistent AGI she would immediately leave them out even if she just started out.

With that trouble in mind, she told them frankly that made Gram and Kaede laugh. As they earned a leer, he immediately explained and told her about the other supporting skills he 'forgot' and immediately thought of teasing her about it.

"You have a skill like that? Amazing!" Risa's eyes lit up but at the same time felt that something was wrong.

Gram rubbed his chin, "Although, I have to touch the players before I could buff them."

"Aren't you just playing with me?" Risa looked with a suspicious look, but seemingly, he just smiled while waving his hands.

Seeing him not bothered while she try to get answer, she just sighed and concluded with a light blush on her cheeks, "U-hhh.. if it's only my head then it's okay~"

Although Risa was a little skeptical over the Skill Requirement, she didn't deny and only looked to the side while feeling slightly shy.

"Wow~ you're so cute when like- gehek!" The giggling Kaede got swatted out with a 'pam'!

With a chop on her head, Risa rolled her eyes before hurrying him to use it.

"Just use it, hurry!" With a slightly blaming look yet slightly bashful look that made her so adorable and charming.

The place is somewhat far and there would be some monster to defeat, he used [Wind Boost] and [Wind Acceleration] on Risa while rubbing her head affectionately for a few seconds.

He quickly moved next to Kaede, hefted her on a princess carry which instantly made her much timid with rosy cheeks.

"I-I..." Kaede had something to say but couldn't say any word when she saw his look, "it's nothing..." Gram smiled and then, glanced at Risa who was already prepared to deny him the moment he said so.

"Do you want to join?"

"Ah~ No thanks! I'm going ahead now!" Risa with a tremble, she replied with a quick wave of her hand and started running away from them. With a quick chuckle followed up.

'This guy is soo… he's so stupid!'

Risa sprinted towards the underground lake with a blushing cheeks as she thought about how shameless he was. She couldn't deal how frank he was when asking promiscuous actions that could lead to momentary embarrassing situations.

She knew her friend wouldn't mind though, with that in mind made her much more fluttery, she might be even implicated to the whims of the duo, making her to do unnecessary things that could easily be misunderstood by other people.

Before Risa knew it, she saw him behind, following her at a high-speed with a grin, while Kaede had been put on his shoulders since she asked him so.

Kaede who had reservations had somewhat returned back to her usual self, she raised her hands high to feel the passing winds, "Well~ It feels really great~~!"

Risa who was mulling nodded, "Un! The winds are so lifelike that you can't differentiate them from reality!"

Inside the game, it's known that moving a lot will make the brain exhausted and the movement will dull if a player fights in a high-speed situation over a long period of time.

It's different to various players, as it depends on how good the brain's mental capacity is. The differences between their reaction and stamina, will also enhance the skills usage of the player. A clear boundary of a player that had experience in workout or fighting versus a shut-in is like comparing a rookie to a pro player, although, there might be some exceptions but the majority followed it.

One of the reasons why Risa and Gram can run this much was because they were used to draining tasks when it comes to their mental capacity. It didn't really affect them that much, adding that both had training (workout or something) to their real bodies making them capable from both reality and to the game.

Even if he only had some STR, he was still able to run that much given that players didn't have any weight themselves when they put all of their stuff in the inventory.

The inventory spaces only affected their own weight and not him. They won't even notice how Kaede has changed as the public won't be easily told that she's Maple without her unique armor.

So having Kaede ride his back is easy as hefting up a wooden sword. It's even better since he could feel her soft hump on her neck while she clung to him like a koala.

It might be another thing that had been neglected by the developers but to him, it was a boon in situations like this. After some time of running, they spotted monsters ahead.

Risa acted as their scouts since she was much faster than him, "Three wolf-type monsters ahead! Maple!"

"I understa〜nd〜!" Kaede used her shield to bash the monster to oblivion.

Gram would put Kaede down and took the front to fight the monsters. When they finished, she would return to his side shyly and be hefted to his back again.

They had actually done that before during their first dungeon but she would turn bashful so he didn't force her.

Risa felt her forehead cramping before she snickered internally, she didn't say out loud what she had been thinking since he would tease her again. He's the only one that could take advantage of rubbing her head for what reason...

They arrive at the underground lake one in one pace, Kaede sighed in amazement, "That's so fast! We're already here..." Kaede, re-equipping her gears, said.

"He~he… see my skills are so useful right?" Gram smirked and affectionately rubbed her head.