“LONEBLADE!? HAHAHA~ KEN ONII-CHAN IS SUCH A CHUUNI”

 

Currently rolling on the floor is the laughing Chiyo whose sides hurt all over from laughing non-stop for over the past 3 minutes. Being ridiculed by his sister as well as had his pride torn was the worse thing that had happened to him all day. Right now Kenichi just wanted to coil up in a hole somewhere and cry. 

 

The term Chuuni refers to Chuunibyo, a certain group of people suffering a mental illness where they like to name themselves a cringy name and do a stupid public stunt, simply because they think it is cool. Obviously, the term in itself has been misunderstood by many, and so over time, it changes from its original meaning to now being used to describe people who named themselves edgy things that most of the time doesn’t actually mean anything. In fact, Kenichi’s name “剣一” only meant “a strong-minded person” and so when it is directly translated into “the lone blade” it doesn’t have any particular meaning or deeper insightful message behind it, and so the only thing that could be described as the meaning behind “the lone blade” was that it sounds edgy. 

 

Personally, Kenichi thinks the name is cool. But the mental damage he received from his sister crits harder than anything anyone ever said to him. He is right now crawling on all four on the ground, rethinking his life decisions. 

 

“So that’s your sister? She looks lovely” commented Shin

 

Kenichi heard that and perked his head up.

 

“Right? Although I wish she would be nicer to me sometimes, she is a good girl at heart”

 

Kenichi finally stood up from his pathetic position and asked a question that was bugging him. 

 

“By the way, why are you guys wearing such different clothes than other people?”

 

Shin, Bemex and Drake looked at each other before letting out a chuckle.

 

Bemex was the first to answer Ken.

 

“We logged in earlier today and did some small quests. We looted some chests and acquired these gears”. 

 

“WOW!”

It wasn’t Kenichi who let out a gasp of a surprise but it was his sister. She stared at Ulti who was closest to herself and approached her.

 

“Where did you get those horns? They looked so cool!” Said Chiyo as she pointed to Ulti’s ear.

 

Keichi squinted his eyes. If Chiyo didn’t mention it, he would surely have missed out but there was indeed small horns coiling into round horns near her ears.

 

Ulti continues to sip on her mug of what seems to be coffee, she put down her mug and without looking at Chyo, she replied in an indifferent tone,

 

“It’s an accessory...I got it from...one of the...hidden chests”

 

Kenichi looked back at Shin and the others.

 

“Just how many quests did you guys do so far?”

 

“Just enough so that we are currently level 6”

 

Kenichi was speechless, he thought that they were going to party together and start questing from level 1 together and figure the mechanic out together as they go, but now they have to grind to reach the same level as them. 

 

“Hey don’t make that face, here I got something for you two”

 

Shin said so as he reaches into his side pouch and placed two pink-colored potions on to the table. 

 

“These are EXP potions. One of it should be enough to get you to level 3”

 

“What’s so good about getting to level 3?” questioned Chiyo.

 

Shin let out a smile and hold up a finger, “You get to pick your class, duh”

Class system

 

The deciding factor for many people to decide whether the game is fun or not, because it is the system that limits the possibilities of what you could do. For people like Kenichi, picking a class in a game is like picking a university offer because once you pick a class, there is no turning back from it and you needed to commit to it.

 

Many games in the past were biased to certain classes, so much so that balancing became an issue. Where the mainstream class are much more rewarding than some other class. Kenichi despised that kind of system, same goes for Chiyo. She always plays whatever games that come out and would always ask her brother to play with her. And there were many cases where she dragged her brother into a game that was so unfair that Kenichi raged quit multiple times. She felt like she was wasting her brother’s time and she hated it. She wanted to spend much, much, much more time with her beloved, dear brother! 

 

And so she would often pick classes that require support all the time like mages, or supporters and had her brother play frontline roles so that they could synergise as much as possible. 

 

“What classes are there?”, asked Chiyo, while looking at Shin.

 

Shin notices that Chiyo now has a more ‘seriousness’ in her eyes and acknowledges that before continuing his explanation.

 

“Good question little miss, there is a total of 7 classes in this game. Which are all available to everyone once they had reach level 3. This includes Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Bard, Monk, Ranger and Rogue. Each of the different class offers different skill trees, different bonus attributes, as well as different advantages and disadvantages”

 

“Hoh…” Kenichi awed. He was impressed by the game’s choices for beginner players. But he still lacks in information when it comes to a class that could suit his style.

 

“For a reference, Senpai, what class did you and your friends pick?”

 

Shin, grinned while pointing to himself with his thumb, “That’s easy! I picked a class that I always played in almost every other game, A ranger!”

 

“I am a cleric!” added Bemex.

 

“...Am a Monk,” said Drake, uninterestingly.

 

“...” 

No answer from Ulti, as he expected.

 

“And what are the bonu-” before Kenichi was able to finish his sentence, Drake slammed the table with his fist.

 

BAAANG!

 

“I’ve had enough of this!”, Shouted in anger by Drake, who seriously looked so irritated holding his anger in for so long. He pointed his claw at Shin who seems so be as surprised as Kenichi himself.

 

“First you said that we were going to meet one of your acquaintances for a little and insisted we come as well, we ended up having to wait OVER an HOUR! Secondly, your explanations are slower than the speed of a Mars rover! 

 

Drake lifted up his arm from the table, that has imprinted the shape of the scales on his arm, and lunged towards Shin’s collar.

 

“Wha-” unable to react to the speed of his friend’s movement, Shin was grabbed by the collar by Drake who is now standing over Shin. 

 

Drake pulled his arm upward, now holding shin like a human-rucksack over his back. 

 

“WAIT! PUT ME DOW- OW! THAT HURTS! YOUR-SPIKE FUCKIN-AH” 

 

No matter how much shin tried to struggle, he can’t seems to wiggle his way out of Drake’s grapple.

 

Drake now looked back towards Kenichi and Chiyo.

 

“Little Chicks! I believe a demonstration would much better explain whatever the fuck you are thinking with those pea brains! Come! Follow me!”

 

Exclaimed Drake as he dragged away from the suffering Shin.

 

Kenichi who was still confused what had happened in that span of 10 seconds turned his head to see Chiyo who was dazed by the shock. He sighed and hold Chiyo’s hand as he followed the pissed of Dragonkin in the distant.

 

---

 

Finally, true silence filled the table.

 

This pleases Ulticetl very much. Initially, she didn’t want to come to this establishment in the first place, but having heard Shin, or ShinFreid, said that he was meeting a certain someone that was his acquaintance, that gave her a false sense of hope of meeting her destined person. Needless to say that she was disappointed that the person who showed up wasn’t what she had expected, but that didn’t faze her mind at all. 

 

In this world that she is now in, she was given a chance, the one chance to finally meet that person once more. Just thinking of their reunion was enough to make her chest feels warmer. She was shaking, from pure joy from the dopamine rushing to her head right now that she didn’t notice that she had finished all the coffee in the mug. 

 

Well, now that she had finished all the coffee in the mug, she no longer had the reason to remain in this establishment no more. She stood up, and placed some coins on the table, one pile for her beverages, another slightly bigger pile for the damages done to the table. As she was about to step foot away from the table, she was stopped by a “thing” that grabbed on to the hem of her skirt.

 

She turned around. The table which was right next to her table was occupied with a bunch of male players, and one of them grabbed on hold on her skirt. Judging from the player’s behaviour, the player wasn’t drunk.

 

“Hey! Your avatar is so damn fine! Why don’t you...you know? Have some good times with us? We will pay you of course!”

 

Line of drools started leaking from the man’s mouth, and some spilt on to the edge of her skirt. Her facial expression remained indifferent as she continued to analyse the worm she is currently dealing with. 

 

‘Its gears are simple swords you acquire from the slime’s drops. Probably a level 3, the table is filled with similar species, their DEF seems to be below average, let’s go with that’

 

She used her hand to grab on hold onto the player’s hand.

 

“Oh? Did you agree? Haha seems like my charms nev-” the man spoke too soon.

 

In that instant, his hand was crushed in from the sides like a tin can. An indescribable pain ran through his entire nervous system.

 

“AAAAAAAAAAGHHHH! YOU BITCH”

 

With an everchanging expression, she took this chance where the man stopped looking at her chest to directly look at him in the eyes. 

 

She spoke firmly in a louder voice. 

 

“G̶͝o̷̶ ̵͡f̕͠u̧̕c̀͢k̡ ̴͘ý̸o̢u̧̧rs̢͡el̕͢f̀” 

 

The man suddenly let go of his hand and now dropped to the ground, his head smashing into the wood boards. Fortunately, the floor didn’t break but some splinter did pierce into his sides. The partying men rushed to see how’s their friend doing only to see him started laughing hysterically. The man tried to grab onto his trousers to pull them off with his tattered hand twisted around like a flail.

 

The men were able to save him from undressing himself while his body was in danger from suffocation and blood loss from moving around with parts of his body caved into the wooden boards and the other twist to the point of almost ripping off. The man lived with his HP in the red. The men tried looking for the woman who had caused this to their friend, but she was long gone from the diner.