Aya assessed the kid and realized she had two options. She could either stick around, put up with his bullshit and find out what it was he wanted from her or she could go on her merry way. Unfortunately, that solitary merry way hadn’t worked out very well thus far. She hated to say it, but the twerp had saved her hide a dozen times over. Then again, he had probably chased her into the situation in the first place and he had definitely not chosen the most effective rescue route, so she wasn’t exactly sure how much gratitude should be allotted to him.

If she stuck around though, she’d have to deal with the kid. Donovan. She should probably stop judging him as a kid, seeing as he was obviously more experienced in the game than she was. His motivations were unclear; he could be using her, for all she knew, but for what? He was obviously a weird kid that did some weird things. He would save her one second and steal her kills the next. If she was going to stick around, they were going to need to straighten a few things out first.

“Alright kid. Listen up. If we’re going to do this quest of yours together, we’re going to have to straighten out a couple of things first. Got that?”

He looked at her blandly and noncommittally.

“Respond! You’re usually so good with answers.”

“Oh, I apologize. I was unaware that a response was required of me. I thought it was a rhetorical question. In that case, what exactly needs to be straightened?”

“...” Unsure if he was just goading her or not, she decided to be the bigger person. The adult. “Okay, we are going to have to teach you how to speak to people without pissing them off. But you might be a ‘hopeless case’ so we’ll tackle that one slowly. Instead, why don’t you tell me why you did what you did back there?”

“Back where? We have been in this clearing for almost half an hour. You were very slow in your battle, I almost gave up on you but felt obliged to stay to the end.”

“Obliged… Well thank goodness for that, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Alright, since humor goes directly by you and you can only speak literally, why don’t you tell me why you took all of my kills?”

“So that you would not gain experience points.”

“... Okay?”

Getting answers from this kid was as hard as pulling teeth, and not the ones that were ready to come out either.

“Why did you not want me to gain them?”

“So that you would not level up.”

“... Why shouldn’t I level up?”

“So you do not ruin your stat balance.”

“Stat balance?”

“Yes.”

“... I wasn’t asking for confirmation. I was asking for clarification.”

“Oh. I apologize, I did not notice.”

Aya couldn’t help smiling a bit. The kid was incorrigible, infuriating and impossible to talk to but she was starting to understand him. Maybe she could learn to like him, after all.

“I thought for sure everyone would know about stats. Even noobs like you. It is quite naive and possibly even dumb to play this game without even knowing such basic fundamentals like stats.”

Or maybe not.

Chris crossed her arms, holding her patience to herself, and waited for Donovan to continue.

“Stats give you slight boosts in certain things like speed, strength, dexterity and so forth. The advantages are very slight at first, but when you reach higher levels, their effect is critical. Unfortunately, they are also quite hard to obtain - except when you level. At each level, you can get a certain number of stat points quite easily, but after that, the difficulty rises exponentially and you can barely receive any more.”

He looked at her like a teacher looks at a student he is explaining quantum physics to. A very dumb student. She decided to ignore the look and nodded for him to continue.

“Open up your notifications. You should have gotten at least a few stat points so far. Even if your performance was less than exemplary, it is quite easy to attain stat points at first.”

She looked around for what he was referring to, and just like he said, she found a blinking notification icon at the very edge of her field of vision. It would have gone by unnoticed had she not actively looked for it. As she opened it up, Donovan continued.

“So as you see, I could not let you level to level two before you had accumulated as many stat points as possible. You might not appreciate it now, but it is for your own good.”

“...”

‘So is duct tape, but I don’t think they have any of that here.’

Aya rifled through the stat points she had received.

A new stat has been created: Strength

A new stat has been created: Speed

A new stat has been created: Instinct

A new stat has been created: Endurance

“All it says here is that stats have been created. Shouldn’t there be like a… an amount or something?”

She was thinking back to her time in the arena.

“No.”

“But if you can’t see when the stats are going up, how do you know you’re still gaining any? Didn’t you say the point was to level it or something?”

“Go to stat growth.”

Aya quickly used the search function to find what he was talking about and to come across a bar that read: 22%.

“When it reaches 100%, you will no longer be able to receive any new stats until you level up. Most people like to stop at 90% since the last 10% are quite hard to acquire. I, however, believe that you should stat grind until at least 95% on every level. 99% if you are still in the single digits. My guideline is to take a percent off the requirement until you reach 95%: 98% while you are in the level 10-19 range, 97% for the 20-29 range, and so on.”

“You’re… quite particular about this aren’t you?”

It made sense now. Why he had taken her kills from her. The kid wasn’t actually an ass, he just behaved like one. She felt bad for being so annoyed with him when all he was trying to do was help her.

“Yes. Now let us commence. There is a lot of work to be done. You are quite useless.”

He turned around and started walking away. She followed him but added.

“You know. You’ve already said that. You don’t have to repeat yourself. And you don’t have to be so… rude.”

He kept walking back the way they had come. Never looking her way, he replied,

“My intention was not be rude. I believe lying is rude. Humans often lie because they think are being polite. How can saying something I want to hear be better for me than something I need to hear? That was a rhetorical question. You do not need to answer.”

She opened her mouth to explain, then she thought of Rin. The kid wasn’t her responsibility, she didn’t need to explain anything, all she needed was his temporary partnership.

“You don’t need to announce rhetorical questions, I can sense them.”

“All right. In future, I will not. However, I wish for you to announce yours. You do not make very logical choices in regards to questions. Actually, you do not make very logical choices in general. It is confusing.”

She ignored the comment.

“So what’s first?”

“Stat grinding.” He looked at her with pity for her mental capacity. “Obviously.”

---

Aya felt like she had been at it for days; her virtual limbs as sore as her real ones had never been, but the clock on the side of her display said otherwise. It had only been seven hours. Added with the time of her initial setup, she had been in the game for a little over two real world hours. Time was both standing still and flying by, in the regard that Donovan’s training was gruelingly mind-numbing and the seconds of her available game time were ticking by. Deciding to adopt her real world technique, she got rid of the clock altogether and decided to focus on the task at hand instead.

She had already wondered more than once if killing - or almost-killing - beast after beast without gaining any experience was really the best use of her time. So far, there wasn’t much to show for her effort. She was only at level two after hours of pointless battling. Donovan insisted she fight foes of higher levels than her, insisting that battles increased her chances of attaining status points and higher levels diminished her chances of landing a lucky hit that would level her up.

Using a mace she’d picked up from one of her previous fights, she fended off a dagger as it came straight at her. The rock goblin in front of her really wasn’t happy, hissing foul-smelling spittle all over himself and sometimes her. Over the last hour, Donovan had made her fight every other goblin in the camp. It was clear with one exception, the leader. He was at level seven, two levels higher than any other goblin had been. Even the burly one she had inherited the mace from had only been at level five.

Small things like the ability to see the creature’s level, even when it was so much higher than her own, were the only visible proof that Donovan’s training regime really was panning out.

“My b-brothhrr!!!” The goblin leader seethed, once more lunging manically toward her.

Over a dozen battles she had learned that while fast, goblin attacks were uncoordinated and very sporadic. You could never know how accurate or how strong the strikes would be by looking, only by feeling. She dodged, quickly sidestepping as the goblin went for her. The moment his blade whizzed by her, she grabbed his arm, a move she had adapted from her Thorndilly confrontation, and disarmed him by twisting his arm. The dagger ricocheted against the ground, before skidding to a halt a couple feet away. She was momentarily caught off guard by her success; she rarely managed to pull it off so smoothly.

The goblin took advantage of the moment to sink his teeth into her shoulder. Cringing, she let go of his arm and stepped away. The bite itself hadn’t dealt much damage, but she had immediately been notified about an infected wound. It would slowly drain her health until she treated it or Donovan decided to step in. As usual, he just stood by as she did the fighting, unperturbed by any of the monsters. He was basically immune to any attacks because of his high level.

Instead, he usually spent his time collecting items from the downed foes and occasionally healing her when she was about to die. Aya couldn’t get over how strange Donovan was. He didn’t have a poor person’s attitude, a poor person’s personality. Eccentricity like that was reserved for the rich. Aya knew too well that to be poor meant that you did what you had to in order to get by. That kid would never have gotten by in any school she knew of. Thus, she really didn’t understand his obsession with loot. A lot of the items he picked up were worthless, like goblin ears and broken arrows, but he never left anything behind.

When she asked him about it, he looked at her like she had asked him to abandon his baby.

Then simply said, “It’s loot.”

As if that was the most obvious reason in the world to carry around used loincloths.

Yes, used loincloths.

He was a hoarder, that was for sure.

The goblin was circling her, trying to get her away from his dagger, but she wasn’t budging. He was already going to be a hard opponent; having a weapon wouldn’t make things any easier for her. She had to hold on to the only advantage she had. He circled her once more and the moment she saw him shift forwards for the blade, she kicked it while side-stepping his advance and clobbered him on the back of the head with mace.

He went down like a sack of potatoes, creating a slight cloud of dust around him. Without giving him time to react, she

clobbered him again and again. He tried to get up, but went right back down when she landed a critical hit on his head. She didn’t get many of those, even after listening to Donovan’s extensive lecture about them, so she was quite happy about it. But it didn’t stop her from continuing her attack. She showed no mercy.

Not even when he tried to roll away, revealing his face to her mace. She brought it down just the same, bloodying his nose with one hit. By the very audible crunch and the mangled shape it had taken, it was obviously broken. The smell of blood no longer fazed her and she lifted the mace once more, this time a little higher than the last, trying to get more momentum for her swing.

Aya realized she shouldn’t have done that the moment the goblin grabbed the mace on its way down, his hands directly next to hers on the shaft. She shouldn’t have given him the time to compose himself. He jerked at the mace, trying to dislodge it from her hands, and screamed.

“Brothhhrrr. Brothhhr. M-my brothheeerrr! Miiiine.” He screeched nasally through a broken nose.

The struggle continued as he tried to jerk it from her hands, and she tumbled to the ground, losing any chance she had at keeping the weapon. With the same leverage as him, she was drastically outpowered. She knew that. The reason Donovan had chosen the goblins as her opponents after the Rockyno horde had been so that she could raise her strength stat. The Halfling race gave her a disadvantage in strength. Donovan advised her to never focus too heavily on strength-based skills. At the same time, he insisted there was such a thing as a bare minimum to have in order to be effective.

So there she was, trying working on her strength before she could go back to working on what would hopefully some day be her strengths, speed and instinct. Unfortunately, she was about to rely on speed again. Letting go of the mace, she quickly scrambled away toward the dagger, wishing she hadn’t kicked it quite so far. Luckily she got a moment of reprieve when the goblin clutched the mace and jeered, “Miine. Brothhrrr dead. Miiiine.”

Fortunately, he cared more about his inheritance than he did about his life. Aya grabbed the dagger, rushed back to the goblin before he could properly equip himself and was about to slash at his exposed throat when the inevitable happened: the goblin’s head slid smoothly off it’s body.

Donovan had taken the kill again.

“Oh come on!” she argued. “I almost had him.”

“You still have quite a way to go before you can level up,” he stated simply, kneeling down to collect the leader’s belongings, stripping him of everything. “Plus. You did not ‘have him’”. Might I remind you that I had to heal you twice during that battle?”

“Yea, but he was a level seven! That’s like, five levels above me. You need to give me some credit, kid.”

He looked her up and down.

“I only give credit where it is deserved. That goblin had over half its health points left. Your strength was basically ineffective against its defense. I killed it because I did not want to wait around for another five minutes. Without the mace, you would be working the wrong stats. The moment you lost the mace, the battle became pointless.”

Silenced, she simply knelt down and helped him collect the loot so they could head to the training ground he chose next. It turned out to be a dried-out lakebed. After another hour of fight after fight, Aya finally had 99% of the level two stats and Donovan took her to a clearing of low-level animals to level up. He left her to drop off his loot in Durrenheim, giving her the first chance she had to collect her own. Her own hoarding nature came to light as she dismantled all of the creatures she killed piece by piece, as she had seen Donovan do many times.

She spoiled many of the pieces, piercing the hide with the dagger she had kept. It was the only piece of loot Donovan had given her, claiming she needed to work on her horrendous weapon handling. When she’d commented on the uneven distribution of goods he had simply said it was decided by merit and not by equality. She decided he was either taking advantage of her somehow or he really was just trying to help her but didn’t know how to behave socially.

Aya chose to go with the second theory. He was just socially awkward, jumping at the chance to have a friend. These thoughts were all banished when, upon his return, he said, “I had not expected to spend so much time training you. I realize now it was a waste of time, but I cannot walk away from something I have already started. I am a perfectionist. It pains me to see such incompetence.”

Following that exchange of words, he showed her how to disassemble monsters for the most profitable loot. She decided to forgive and forget. He was helping her after all, even if he could be an ass about it.

They trained for a couple hours longer, following the same pattern as before. Wound, heal, wound, heal, Donovan kill, Donovan loot. Aya felt certain at level three she had killed every beast in the region that could be found in the single digit levels. After disbanding a group of Drongels, a mixture of a monkey and porcupine that randomly fired its poisonous spikes at you with no warning, Donovan suddenly said.

“Alright. I must leave now. What is your current stat gain percentage?”

Aya opened the window as she bent over, still wheezing from the fight. It didn’t make sense to feel so physically depleted from a mental game, but there she was, like a chainsmoker at the top of a flight of stairs.

“Ninety four.” She managed.

He looked pensively for a moment.

“You have two options. You can go level up to four if you wish. You know how to skin for good quality fur now, so you should receive a decent reward. Or, you can continue to work on your stats. It will be more difficult without me, and I advise you choose your opponents carefully. Too strong and they will kill you. Too weak and you will kill them without earning any new stats. I would avoid killing them whenever possible.”

“But… if I don’t kill them. They’ll keep coming after me. Won’t they?”

“Yes.”

His literal understanding hadn’t changed.

“Well… So how do you… advise that I not kill them?”

“You run.”

“...” Aya thought back back to some of the opponents she had fought. The ones Donovan had chosen to raise her speed stats. There was no way she could outrun a charging Rockyno. The only reason she had survived her first attempt was because of Donovan’s healing.

Aya was still considering this when he said, “Alright. I must go eat. I shall be back in five Era hours. Hopefully you will have made some progress by then. I will message you when I return.”

Without another word, he logged out. His avatar was enveloped by a blue tube of light before it flashed brightly and disappeared.

Donovan, gone.

For a moment, she was stumped, unsure of what to do. It made sense that he had a real life and other things to take care of, but she had been lost in the game for so long, she hadn’t even considered the fact that he might leave her alone. Looking around, she worried if she even knew where she was. Perhaps it had not been the smartest move to depend on the kid quite so heavily.

She was usually quite good with directions, if she could visualize them. Picking up an errant stick, she drew out the places she remembered. Durrenheim, where they had started out, the various grinding areas they had headed to, which pretty much made a zigzagging circle to the west of the town and finally, her current location.

Satisfied she knew where she was, she decided to make a beeline back to town while increasing her stats. She picked off really low level monsters, which she came to realize was anything below the level five. The stat boost was really starting to add up, adding a few noticeable changes to her abilities, particularly her speed. After about an hour, she had gained the final points to give her the 99% attainment rate she was looking for.

Aya then headed to the Rabidunny area Donovan had taken her to briefly. They hadn’t stayed there long since the creatures were so low level and easy to kill, giving her little chance to gain stats. But they had the softest fur she had encountered in the game so far. She hoped Curiana and her vendor friend appreciated texture like real humans did. She rapidly dispatched two dozen of them and was grateful they did not give a lot of experience points. Even after killing so many of them, she had only reached about half of the experience points required for the next level. According to Donovan, quests gave a lot more experience points than beast kills. It was the reason he hadn’t let her cash her quest in thus far.

‘Well, that and his stinginess with the loot.’

While she had been fighting battle after battle, the loot didn’t seem to matter so much, since Donovan was with her the whole time. The loot seemed to be a communal good. Now that Donovan had left her, she didn’t feel like that anymore. She kind of felt stripped, like someone had nicely asked for her clothes, and she had given them away. Now she was doing the naked walk of shame.

As she skinned the Rabidunnies, she banished the thought. There she was, able to, if not professionally, at least proficiently skin a creature. That was thanks to him; it would have taken her a lot longer to figure out on her own. She was not a hunter at heart.

A baker, a cook and a part-time mom? Yes.

A knitter? Sometimes.

Killing creatures for fun? Hadn’t been on the list... until now.

After proudly gathering her acquired loot, Aya realized she wasn’t going to be able to carry it all back. She didn’t have a bottomless bag like Donovan. Aggravated, she sorted the loot again. Keeping only as much as she could carry, she made her way back to Durrenheim. She hadn’t spent much time worrying about other players until then, they had only encountered a couple the whole time they had been out there, but when she looked back to see some chick rifling through the pile she was forced to leave behind, Aya couldn’t help but feel annoyed.

First order of business was to find a bag.

‘God. I sound like such a girl.’

---

Aya wasn’t surprised to find another player clearing a quest with Curiana when she arrived at the woman’s cart. Exuberant as always she thanked the player before directing her attention Aya’s way.

“Well, my, my. You’re back! For a while there I thought I would never see you again. But then I thought to myself. Curiana, these Otherworlders can take care of themselves and if they can’t… Well… You’ll just keep coming back to life till you can won’t you?”

‘A rhetorical question.’ Chris caught herself thinking. She couldn’t help smiling while thinking of the kid. He was a pain in the ass, but he could be sort of cute. Sometimes, and really just sort of.

“Oh! I see that smile on your face! It’s good to see you in such good spirits about it. Otherworlders sometimes get discouraged when they don’t immediately succeed. Especially in recent times… But let’s not focus on that right now. Why don’t you show me what you have there?” Curiana motioned to the stack of furs Aya was still carrying. “I assume this is for me?”

“It is.”

“Perfect!” The woman exclaimed.

After completing the quest, Curiana let her choose what trinket she wanted as a reward. The selection was limited, but Aya ended up finding something she liked, a notebook. They then headed over to the pelt stall and Aya was pleased to find out that the burly man did appreciate the soft quality of the fur after all. Introductions were made and Curiana went on her merry way, inviting Aya to return to her stall any time. There were many more quests to be had there if she wanted them.

While talking to Will, the pelt merchant, she noticed he had a selection of bags for sale. They were completely out of her price range, but when Will saw how much she wanted one he offered her a deal. Her fur choice had gone a long way in winning the man over and she knew that without the added reputation points she had gained from that choice, he would never have offered her a quest.

It went along the same lines that Curiana had given her, but instead of just any random pelt she had a particular variety to go after. Aya quickly made a note in her notebook about the pelts Will wanted. There probably was a way to make a virtual note, but it felt more real doing it by hand. Plus, she had plans for that notebook. She just hoped they worked out the way she intended. It had been a long time since she had relied on any of her artistic skills.

After leaving Will’s stand with the promise to come back with his request, Aya roamed the stalls, finally able to investigate the town some without her stalker. She didn’t get through many though because suddenly, she received a notification. It popped up, quite prominently filling the upper third of her field of vision.

Goldilocks Penitentiary System Message:

You have 10 minutes to log out.

If you do not do so within the allotted time,

the system will forcefully do it for you.

Meal Serving is due.

She had totally forgotten about her real body, but as she thought about it, Aya really was hungry. She hadn’t eaten anything since Donovan roasted one of the Meatigs he killed. Making a mental note to do something about food when she logged in again, she thought about the connection of her real body and her virtual one. She wondered if it was exhausted and hungry as well. It hadn’t been killing beasts all morning, so probably not.

‘Only one way to find out.’

A circle of blue light enveloped her before flashing so brightly she instinctively closed her eyes.

Aya logged out.

---

As Chris came to her real body, she felt like she was waking up from a long dream. For an instant she wondered if she really had only imagined the last couple of days, but the moment was cut short as the capsule hissed and opened, letting in the solar lights of the capsule bay.

Her senses felt off. Everything was… less. After spending so much time in a smaller body, she almost felt tall. Climbing out of the capsule, her limbs dragged like spaghetti behind her. They didn’t feel like her own.

As she readjusted to her body, the capsule beside her hissed open.

Yaz.

Chris had completely forgotten about her. She was supposed to have figured out what to tell her. The girl was obviously going to expect a conversation at lunch. A conversation about gaming skills Chris obviously didn’t possess. The last couple of hours had made that abundantly clear. And if they hadn’t, Donovan had.

She took a calming breath.

It was time to face the music.