Chapter 9

I rubbed my face a bit as my shoulder had bumped into someone that was passing by, "Sorr-" as I was going to say but I then saw who it was. The person I had bumped into was Kirito, we looked at each other dead in the eyes as what seemed like the air tensing up a bit. "Hey..." I said to him as he replied "Hey..." sounding a little concerned.

We both stared at each other for a few seconds before we turned our attention to some oncoming footsteps. I saw the person and it was the same girl that was wearing the hood over her head. I could barely make out her facial features as all I saw was her mouth under that red hood, I looked at her as I saw that she had a rapier equipped and holstered at her waist to her hip. "Is this girl a rapier user?" I said to Kirito as he replied "Yeah, I just noticed that too", The girl seemed to be in a hurry as she said "Let's just go already!", storming ahead with Kirito following right behind her saying "Asuna wait up!!".

"Asuna?"

I thought to myself confused as my train of thought kept going, "Is that her name? Well I guess that's new information to keep in check" as I then walked the other way towards Tolbana again. I met up with the NPC and collected my item from the quest, ShrineStone Rune was equipped as its skill was an active skill. "I should be ready for this raid now, depending on when we can get this done..." I thought as I headed towards a blacksmith shop within Tolbana.

"Hey can you make my sword better, I have some Smithing Stones for it"

I said casually as the NPC nodded and replied "Sure thing, I'll have this weapon forged up and ready for you sir" as the menu opened up for the upgrading station. The Upgrading station was a unique station for upgrading your weapon, I put most of my COL and Smithing stones into STR but also some into WGT (Weight) so the sword didn't weigh me down as much. The sword was now upgraded as I picked up the newly upgraded weapon and checked its stats.

Stonegail Sword (+3)

ATK: 18 (+2)

DUR: 10

AGI: 10

WGT: 5 (+1)

"Alright, a pretty good sword from a town upgraded"

I thought as with a little smile as I put away my sword, I then looked at the sky as I saw the clouded blue sky. "Huh... I still got time to kill" I thought as I then heard a wind chime sound again, checking my menu and seeing a notification in my communications tab again. I seemed overly confused as I clicked it and saw a message and a bright orange circle on the name "Toru". I was a bit confused when I clicked Toru's name, seeing the message screen open up as a message from Toru had appeared.

"Hey, can you meet me at the coliseum, make sure your alone please"

I was shocked at this message, I looked around both ways before I quickly typed with a virtual keyboard "Sure, I'll head over there right now" as I closed the communications tab.

I quickly headed towards the entrance of the Coliseum and checked inside it, a bit exhausted but full of virtual adrenaline. "Where is this Toru person??" I thought as I looked around before hearing a voice from above "Up here dummy" they said as they jumped down from the top and landed onto their feet, but since we're in a safe zone, they took no fall damage.

The mysterious Toru stood up, seeing that it was another female player, wearing a poncho, a steel breastplate over a jacket along with some pants rather than the default skirt.

"I'm Toru!"

She said with a confident smile, I was nothing but stunned and awed at her for a bit before snapping out of it, "I-I'm Kirin, Are you...the one who took me back to Haruka Village?" I questioned as I rubbed the back of my head a bit awkwardly. "Yep! Man you were knocked the hell out back there" she said with a bit of an accent coming out as she covered her mouth and cleared her throat. I looked at her confused as I said to her "Is English not your first language?" as she looked at me and tried to laugh it off.

"What do you mean, I can speak English fine, see!"

She said in her confident tone again, and I clearly sensed a red flag of her accent, noticing a small break between some phrases. I pieced these two things together and told her "Are...Are you Japanese?" as She looked at me, stared me down for a bit before she shook her head repeatedly. "No! I am not!" she shouted covering her face.

I had a good look at her face and did notice some features that showed her of asian descent, noticeably her silky hair and her seamless skin. I then asked her "I know a little bit of Japanese, but not too much" as she looked at me and was a little confused. I only said that to comfort her as she seemed obviously embarrassed that her identity was found out already, "You..do..?" she stuttered with a low and seemed like a curious tone to my ears, I nodded trying to say "Ara...Aragato" as she shook her head chuckling.

"It's not like that, It's..." she said as I asked her, "Can you teach me then?", she nodded saying "Sure, here's the actual way to say it.." as she took a small deep breath. I stood there to listen to her low, calm, and satisfactory voice.

"It's...Arigato..."