First Chapter of Volume 2, there will be more focus on Character interaction and psychological changes in this one but the action element will still run strong so no worries!

Hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 20: Crimson Memories

Trees.

All around Makoto were trees.

An endless green, his secret little hideout.

Makoto was currently 5 years old.

Patrick had been mean to him again, he didn't like Patrick.

Always made fun of his appearance, always called him 'slit eyed weirdo'.

Makoto's brow furrowed thinking back to Patrick and he lost focus in his work.

Concentrating on what he was doing again, Makoto couldn't help but smile.

It was so fun doing this, red really was his favorite color.

Daddy was probably looking for him, he liked Daddy a lot more than Mummy, he was always nice to him.

Still focused on what he was doing, Makoto did not notice his Daddy approaching from the trees behind him.

"There you are Makoto, I was worried.

Listen you can't just run off like tha- WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!"

Daddy shouted and he looked towards him, smiling and turning so his father could see what he was doing, Makoto presented his work.

His hands had a pretty red color, just like the ground around him and little Mister Birdy was twitching with the funny colored things spilling from its belly.

Every time Makoto pulled more of those funny colored things out of Mister Birdy's body he always flopped around funny.

Makoto liked seeing Mister Birdy flop on the ground.

Showing his crimson colored hands to his father, Makoto had a big smile on his face.

"Look Daddy! Red!"

He cheerily said and patted his own face, leaving small red handprints on his face.

Makoto noticed that Daddy was not happy and he got worried.

Why did Daddy look like Mummy always did?

And then pain exploded on his right cheek and tears started flowing.

Daddy hit him, Daddy hit him just like Mummy did when he did something wrong.

Unable to comprehend and holding his hurting cheek, Makoto started crying with Mister Birdy still twitching beside him but he didn't find it funny anymore.

"NEVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT AGAIN DO YOU HEAR ME?! NEVER!"

Makoto did not even have time to react or answer as he was pulled by his arm.

Pulled away from Mister Birdy and his little secret spot in the woods.

Makoto couldn't help but look back to Mister Birdy one last time while holding his hurting cheek with his free hand.

There was so many funny colored soft things pulled out of its belly all around it.

It looked so pretty.

Pretty red.

Pretty.

Crimson.

.....

Opening his eyes, Makoto stared at the white ceiling above him.

He still remembered the dream even if some parts started to blur together.

It was one of the oldest Memories he had, from a time where his parents had still been together.

Looking back at it he now knew that he had practically gutted a wounded bird while it was still alive.

It was not really a nice memory, maybe it was because of this that crimson red was his favorite color?

Shaking his head to get the last bit of sleepiness out of it, Makoto sat up and slowly got ready for College.

Today was Friday so this would be his last day before he could enjoy the weekend.

After putting on clothes, brushing his teeth and making sure his fly was not open, Makoto looked at himself in the mirror.

Back at him stared a skinny man, black hair, obvious Asian heritage, average build and height.

The only thing that seemed off was that his eyes were not crimson colored anymore but instead he was back to his dark brown Iris.

He looked more like a tourist instead of an American citizen but that was the curse of being in the minority heritage wise.

Sighing deeply, Makoto picked up his bag and left his appartment.

.....

He followed Veronica out of the room and soon enough they left the College building.

Makoto had asked her if she wanted to hang out after the course finished and luckily for him she readily agreed.

"Do you wanna go to that new Coffee shop that just opened 2 blocks away?"

He tried making conversation and at the same time figuring out where they could actually go as he was pretty inexperienced with all of this stuff.

"Yeah sure, wouldn't mind some coffee, my head is killing me after that long lecture I am telling you."

Veronica said while showing a bright smile and he couldn't help but think that together with the sunlight, that single moment was worth a fortune.

Nearly running into a lamppost, Makoto started to concentrate a bit more where he was walking instead of being mesmerized by Veronica's beauty.

Even though it was the end of January it had warmed up to the point where winter jackets had become unnecessary.

Soon enough they entered the warm inside of the Coffee Shop and decided to sit down at the back while Makoto went to get 2 cappuccinos.

"So what did you wanna talk about Makoto?"

Veronica asked after sipping her coffee.

"Well, I just wanted to talk with you a bit more. Is that not okay with you?"

He asked with a little smile.

"No its alright, I just thought you wouldn't bring a girl to a coffee shop on the first date, maybe you should have started with your apartment first and we could have spent some time there."

Veronica had a sly smile on her face as she was saying that and Makoto had to use his utmost willpower to not let his imagination get out of hand here.

She was watching his inner struggle amused and after he got back his composure, they started talking about a few things, College mostly.

Whenever Makoto asked her a personal question she seemed to evade them by asking him something else right away or giving a vague answer, in a way it was a bit disappointing as he practically knew nothing about her.

Giving up on getting a straight answer about her background, Makoto asked what he had been meaning to ask all this time, the entire reason he had brought her here in the first place.

"Oh right, I just remembered, when do you actually want to meet up so I can help you a bit with studying on the weekend?"

He tried saying as casual as possible while secretly tensing up an incredible amount.

"How about tomorrow at 6? Just come to my place, I live pretty close to the College, tell you what, give me your number and I will tell you tomorrow how to get there alright?"

She said and pulled out her phone.

Makoto was stunned for a second before also pulling out his own phone, it was an older model than hers and had a cracked screen but still worked completely fine which is why he never had gotten a new one until now.

Trying not to stutter while telling Veronica his number, Makoto soon enough got a test call and now also had her number.

The first other number that he actually saved in his phone except his mum's.

It felt good seeing the name Veronica in his 'Contacts' list.

Happy he smiled towards the beautiful girl sitting opposite to him and tried to keep the conversation running.

After about half an hour Veronica told him she had to go and he followed her outside.

Surprisingly enough she hugged him as a goodbye and his heart nearly stopped when he felt two soft mounds pressing against his chest.

Not able to hide his burning cheeks, Veronica giggled one last time seeing him flushed like that and walked away while waving.

Following the now distant girl with his eyes, Makoto looked up to the blue sky above him and smiled still with red cheeks.

Today was a good day.

.....

With a blinding light Makoto could feel the world around him again.

He was in a pretty good mood after meeting up with Veronica and still smiling, continued his Journey.

Makoto was currently traveling on a road that led to the west, it was supposedly a good and fast way to reach the Capital.

After logging off rather quickly last night he had only made it a few hundred feet away from the stone bridge.

All around him many other players and NPC's headed either to Talis or the same direction as him, it was a well traveled road after all.

Naturally just walking all the time was quickly getting boring so he decided to look at the forums in a small window while walking and just surfed the web in general.

After about an hour or so of travel a sudden system message made Makoto jump as it kicked him out of the forums like normally only entering combat would do.

Attention!:

'Yggdrasil' has successfully been registered as the first guild in Azalon, for this incredible achievement every player currently inside the guild will receive + 5 'Fame'!

The feature 'Guild View' has now been enabled for all players!

It is now possible to access the 'Guild View' option in the menu and look for official guilds that exist in Azalon.

It is now possible to access the 'Guild View' option in the menu and look at the ladder ranking and members of the individual Guilds.

Guild vs. Guild battles have been enabled!

Interested, Makoto opened his menu and there really was a new option to select from.

Right away he looked at the players who currently had a position in Yggdrasil.

The Guild leader was a guy called 'Norumis' and until now Makoto had never heard of him.

Sadly he was only able to see the names of the players that were part of the guild, no pictures or further information but in a way that made sense, if everyone could view how a player looked or what class he had it would be way too easy to exploit for other guilds or possible Player Killers.

One thing Makoto was taken aback by was a name he found in the upper echelons of Yggdrasil.

Currently there existed a Guild Leader and below that were 5 Guild Captains, one of them was Drake.

Seeing this all too familiar name again did not bring back any happy memories for Makoto so he quickly closed the Interface.

"Let's just hope that dickface doesn't declare me the Guild Enemy Number 1..."

He said, more to himself than to anyone else while deep in thought.

In a way just knowing that Drake held such a high position in a supposedly prestigious guild and the first one to even exist in Azalon on top of that only made Makoto feel disgust towards the entirety of Yggdrasil.

Deciding to forget the whole thing for now, Makoto continued on the road towards Elisante.

One quick look on his map showed that he had only traveled a short distance so he decided to pick up the speed a little and started running.

Many NPCs and Players gave him a strange look when they saw him running past with his crimson cloak fluttering after him.

He was actually going quite fast thanks to his high Agility stat and soon enough the number of players around him started to thin out until he was nearly completely alone on the gravel road.

After about an hour of running he was breathing quite heavily and a pain at his sides finally told him that it was time to stop.

Taking a big sip out of his Waterskin, he noticed a group of players walking not that far ahead of him.

With his current walking speed he soon enough caught up to them and couldn't help but wonder as their forms got clearer.

He could see a burly Warrior wearing heavy Platemail leading the group and an Archer with a longbow was currently talking with the Mage of the party while the Priest walked next to the Mage.

The closer he got the more both the Mage and the Priest started to ring a bell and soon enough he was able to see the good bust and nice curves of both females.

Grinning from ear to ear, Makoto walked close enough that he was in earshot and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Well I'll be damned, I knew that ass looked familiar, good to see you again Lilly and Sanja!"

Right away a furious Lilliana turned around after hearing his voice, her cheeks flushed and both hands covering her rear.

Sanja on the other hand had a big smile on her face after recognizing him and stopped together with the group.

"Nice to see you again Makoto, it has been a while indeed."

Sanja said while Lilliana was currently trying to kill Makoto with her stare alone.

Unlike the carefree Sanja, Lilliana just turned her head while crossing her arms and let out a "Hmph" sound, clearly annoyed.

He only smiled seeing her attitude and stepped closer.

"What's with that rude behavior Lilly, I thought especially you would miss me.

After all we did have a great time on that beach together right?"

An ever growing smile was visible on his face as he noticing the discomfort of the Archer and Warrior in the party as he said something that could be misunderstood very easily, it was possible to have sex if both players wanted and agreed to it after all.

With her whole face now turning red she stomped towards Makoto and tried to strangle him while having her head low as she was unable to endure looking at his smiling expression anymore.

Struggling to form words, Makoto continued and nearly broke out into loud laughter during it.

"Well then, look at that! She missed me so much she just can't seem to keep her hands off me!"

Unable to bear it anymore, Lilliana looked into his eyes and a clear desire to kill could be seen.

"If you don't shut up right now I will burn you to death you asshole!"

She practically hissed, her face incredibly close to his own.

With a gentle smile and shutting his mouth he looked at the flustered girl in front of him, her beautiful brown eyes, shoulder long black, smooth hair and full cherry red lips.

She was without a doubt incredibly pretty just like Sanja.

"It is really good to see you again Lilly."

Makoto finally said after staring at her for a few seconds.

This time she blushed with a smile appearing on her face as she avoided eye contact.

This is going to be fun...

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And that is the Chapter of today!

As always comment below and tell me any questions or ideas :D.

Hope you enjoyed and see you all tomorrow! [th_113_.gif]