CHAPTER 6 - To encounter

(3rd person pov)

Flashback

"Unfortunately some friends in the family having  ignored this warning  and tried to disconnect the  nerve gear Leading to the loss of 213 lives from both the real world and Aincrad." Said the Gm.

A red haired, red eyed young man with a height of about 155cm, wasn't feeling daunted at all due to his status as a beta tester.  Karma Akabane is his name.

Karma kept listening to kayaba's speech and found this situation amusing.  He looked at player's reaction around him and scoffed, labeling them as noobs in his mind.  

 conveniently forgetting the fact that dying in this game means dying in the real world. It could have been a way for his mind to cope In order to escape the reality of the situation but he reassured himself that he could do anything. once the announcement ended he immediately left the square just like our MC, but left the town immediately to the next town because he knew that the hunting grounds would soon get crowded by other players trying to level up quickly.

 On his way to the other town, with only his level 1 status and his starting equipment of an iron sword he had to evade a lot of stronger monsters because he knew he couldn't stand up to them due to his low stats. His thought process was to get to the New town and start to take on stronger monsters one by one, increasing the number consistently as he gets stronger.

 It's a faster way to level up instead of fighting weaker monsters and waste time to level up. This was actually a bright idea but he failed to account for one simple fact. It was a very dangerous journey and one slip up could mean death, well he also came to this realization but a bit too late.

 Waiting for a long while, hiding here and dodging their sights and doing his best not to trigger the aggro of these stronger beasts. He managed to get quite far and when the other town was just a few miles out, he failed to spot a Viper at the edge of his vision behind the tree and pulled it's aggro.

 The monster was about twice his level so seeing it he decided to take a chance and engaged the Viper. He kept evading it's bites. Sidestepping, jumping, rolling around to avoid being hit. He also managed to get in a few strikes but his strength was too low and he couldn't put it down quickly.

The situation became dire when another Viper came close and he couldn't disengage anymore, this was due to the situation. Pushed to the corner, he started to flee but the monsters began chasing him, running for a while longer he got cornered when he was pushed to the edge and at this point there were two more wolves chasing him with the Vipers and hit points getting so low, he knew he made a big mistake but regret won't save him right now so all he could do with keeping this up and hope he comes out of this alive.

 screaming out with determination he launched back into the fight and managed to slay the first Viper giving him his first level up.

Karma

LV 2

Quickly putting all stats into strength, he regained his vigor and kept fighting. He wasn't fast enough to evade their blows, but he could feel better against the other monsters but he couldn't take them down.

 The reason he lasted so long was because of his skill in the real world. He was a very athletic person and he's gotten into a few fights so he knew how to control his abilities to read monster's attacks, while his strength wasn't high enough to bring them down. Losing stamina points quickly, he was about to give up, he had only 100 HP left before he was gone, broken up into pixelated fragments, and dying in the real world. But before he could fall into despair he saw someone at the corner of his vision.

 A young man, with mocha skin color, dreadlock style hair, tired in the ponytai with a height of about 175 centimeters rushed into the fray. Quickly pulling his Sword out of its scabbard he cut off the head of the Viper first, a quick draw slash to take out the wolf, a Crescent slash for the other wolf.

It took less than 10 seconds to takedown all three monsters that almost killed karma.

 At this point he knew his arrogance was ill placed and almost led to his death. Remaining dumbstruck for about a minute before thanking the young man for his help, albeit with a slightly less smug attitude.

"um, Thanks for the assist bro, that was some impressive skills for a player still on his first day." Said karma.

"you juicing or what cause that was totally unreal" he added jokingly but got only silence in response.

Meanwhile Mikey was busy observing karma and was internally surprised to see someone other than himself this far out already.

Finished contemplating, Mikey began to speak "what are you doing so far out here alone and unprepared?"

 "I could ask you the same thing dude, I mean it's only the first day and I didn't think anyone would be crazy enough to go so far out and still be alive, I mean just look at me I nearly died" karma replied sharply.

 "Well, all that aside would you introduce yourself or would you just keep ignoring the obvious elephant in the field. My name is Michael and you are?" Michael questioned.

"Well whatever, my name is karma, once again thanks for the save. So what are you even doing out here and how can you move so fast and what were those skills?" karma shot back.

 "You know it's incredibly rude to ask someone you just met these questions right. I mean I don't even know you"

 "OK yeah sure, it's just I'm still a little bit shaken up due to you know, almost dying and all. But like seriously bro how could you even do that that was so awesome." Karma kept pressing

" it takes time and effort and also skill like 90%. From your presence here I'm guessing you are a beta tester." Michael replied smoothly.

 Startled a little bit by the direct tangent of the conversation, karma considered lying but figured there was no point to it and this guy just saved his life, so he said

" Yeah I'm a beta tester, just wanted to get to the Next town and start to level up. you know it'd be easier that way and also there are a lot of quests that I can get there to level up faster, but I almost got killed before even making it there, how dumb is that?"

" It was a smart idea but not well thought out. So what do you wanna do now? " Michael asks then adds " are you gonna keep going to the town or would you rather follow me back to my camp and rest for the night"

" Yeah sure, lead the way" karma replied a bit exhaustedly after coming down form his adrenaline high.

 And that was how Michael first met the red flash. But that's a story for another time.