Rebecca enjoyed drifting and relaxing in the pool for quite some time, before she finally splashed and swam her way back over to lean back on the steps and soak with only her head above the water. “Matthew?” Gently, not certain how to approach asking all the many things she wanted to know, she started by simply calling his name. “Matthew,” she repeated, “you busy?”

“Just soaking in the water and the sight,” he answered, as he swam up and settled back on the steps beside her. “Why?

“Where are we,” she asked softly. “How’d we get here?”

“I brought us here after you overused your magic dancing,” Matthew answered, yawning as he relaxed. “We’re currently in my home, in the domain of Hel, far from any troubles or concerns that might be occurring back on Earth.” Tugging lightly, he pulled her over from where she was sitting beside him and sat her down in his lap instead. Casually wrapping his arms around her, Matthew gently traced across her nipples with his fingers as he continued talking. “As to getting here, it was my magic that brought us here. I told you I’d learned the return magic,” he reminded her.

Trying hard to stay relaxed and not stiffen up, Rebecca tilted her head back to try and look at him. “But?” Uncertain, she softly bit her lower lip and then shook her head slightly back and forth. “How did you find this place? How did it become yours?”

“I’ve always had it,” Matthew whispered into her ear. “Didn’t have to work to earn it, or fight some baddy for it. It was one of the beta tester rewards which I got for play testing the game. It’s actually a neat little place to have. I’d imagine places like this will be heavily contested eventually as other people start gaining classes and learn about them.”

“Well,” he laughed suddenly, “maybe not this place. Not too many people have dreams of owning a place in Hel.”

“How’d you get here the first time?” Rebecca asked curiously. “Did you start with the magic at the beginning, or something?”

“Not quite,” Matthew assured her. “It was a couple of days after I’d signed up for the game that a package came in the mail for me. It had the ring I’m wearing that produces a dimensional storage, a book with a few basic skills and spells for my class, and a rolled up poster of a black door. The skills I learned just by staring at the book and trying to figure out how to get the damn thing open, and the ring I didn’t learn the trick to until I was washing my hands and wearing it once, and the door…”

After he trailed off and got silent for a moment, Rebecca squirmed to look back at him quizzically again. “And the door?”

“And the poster of the door,” Matthew sighed, “I fell through like an idiot as I was trying to hang it up on my wall.”

Rebecca couldn’t help but laugh as she tried to imagine it. She pictured him putting a piece of tape up top to hold a poster up, and then while bending down to tape up the bottom, it falling, landing over him, and then sending him to someplace different like this. She could only imagine how disorientated, bewildered, and scared she would’ve been, if she’d accidentally sent herself to someplace like this desolate, deserted wasteland. One part of her almost felt sorry for him, but the other part imagined how his face must’ve looked in that moment after the poster dropped and she couldn’t help laughing.

“Yeouch!” With a sudden little jolt of pain through her nipples, her laughter died instantly on her lips and she struggled to pull away, but Matthew wouldn’t let her as he tightened his grip and pulled her back firmly against his chest. “Be easier than that, dammit!” Tears welled up in the corner of her eyes and she rubbed them involuntarily.

“Sorry,” Matthew whispered as he pinched the same spot once again, causing Rebecca to once again yelp out and try to tug away, “but I can’t do that,” he told her. “It’s for your own good after all.”

“How the hell is pulling my nipples off good for me?” Rebecca struggled to get away, but Matthew had her firmly caught in his arms and held her tight in a vise-like grip.

“I told you before,” Matthew reminded her, “there’s skills now which will help you with physical endurance, physical resistance, and even how fast you heal.”

“But why my breast?” Seeing that escape was impossible at the moment, and since he wasn’t pinching anymore, Rebecca took a deep breath and tried to settle back against him again. If he thought she had given up, he might ease his grip and then there’d be a better chance for her to get away later.

“Because they’re so sensitive,” Matthew answered honestly. “They take very little actual physical damage to produce an intense result, so the skill increase is high while the risk to actual life and health is low.”

“Well that sucks,” Rebecca pouted. “Are you going to do it again?”

“Probably,” Matthew answered honestly.

“I might come to learn to hate you,” Rebecca warned.

“Probably,” Matthew agreed again.

“You suck,” Rebecca muttered, hanging her head dejectedly.

“Absolutely,” Matthew agreed, “but I did promise that I was going to help take care of you, teach you, and help you grow in this new damn world. This is the only way I know to do it, and the physical resistances and recovery are one of the things which I truly think can make the difference between life and death.”

“Fine,” Rebecca mumbled, halfway submerging her head in the water. “I might understand it, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to like it. Or you for doing it,” she warned.

“That’s fine,” Matthew sighed, as he gave another pinch. “You don’t have to like it, or me. You just have to stick to your word and be a true companion for me.” When Rebecca didn’t say anything back, he gently offered, “How about I teach you the basics of the game while we’re in here?”

“Fine,” Rebecca pouted. “Teach me.”

Laughing lightly, Matthew lifted his hand and gently ruffled her hair for a moment, before lowering it back down and wrapping it around her waist. “For starters,” he informed her, “you should know that the game itself will provide you with a ton of useful information.”

“Like what?” Rebecca asked, curious in spite of herself.

“Like damage amounts, opponent’s health levels, some item information. All sorts of junk really,” Matthew replied. “The trick is, just about all of those things are turned off by default. Say ‘combat window on’ for starters,” he commanded.

“Combat window on?” Rebecca said, sounding half questioning, before letting out a little surprised, “Oh!”

Nodding to himself, Matthew asked, “I take it there’s now a small translucent black box hovering off to the right side of your vision now?”

“There is,” Rebecca confirmed.

“Good.” With a half chuckle, Matthew gripped a couple of fingers around her nipple again and gave it a half yank and a twist. Once again, Rebecca yelped and squirmed as she muttered a nasty expletive under her breath. “See anything on the window now?” Matthew asked.

“Matthew Barnett has inflicted one point of critical damage on you,” Rebecca read out sullenly.

“One point is the least you can possibly do,” Matthew explained, “and the critical says that it was to a sensitive or vital area. Anything critical increases your rate of skill learning. Critical attacks help you improve your ability to attack. Critical dodges help you improve your rate of avoiding opponents. When you take critical damage, it increases your chance of learning the resistance skills.”

“It still sucks,” Rebecca griped sullenly.

“Maybe,” Matthew agreed, “but the important thing is that the combat window is working for you. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how long it took for me to find out about it. There’s also a ton of other useful windows which you should have access too.”

“Like what?” Rebecca wondered.

“Status window, spell window, inventory window, effects window, advantages window, resistances window. There’s a whole ton of them,” Matthew answered with a laugh. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to learn all of them at once. I’ll remind you and help teach them to you, until you’re used to them all,” he promised.

“For now,” he suggested, “why don’t you start with the Help window.”

Turning back to stare at him, Rebecca asked, “There’s a help window? Why didn’t you tell me about it right off the bat?”

“There is,” Matthew confirmed, “but it’s not really all that helpful. Honestly, I found a lot of the things that it told me to just be completely useless. Or else they just confused me even more.”

“Why’s that?” Rebecca asked, raising one eyebrow in an arch as she stared back at him.

“You’ll see in a bit,” Matthew chuckled. “It’s almost as if it was some sort of instruction manual. The problem is it seems like the instruction manual was written into Japanese, then translated to German, before being translated to Chinese, before finally being translated to English for us to read.”

“I still remember one phrase that I pondered over for ages,” Matthew laughed. “You hurt up critical skill more resist less – whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. I think it’s saying something like ‘if you get a critical hit when attacking, your skill goes up more, and the opponent resists less’, but that’s awfully damn hard to infer from what the help tells you. At least, for me it was,” Matthew said, shaking his head slightly.

“I can see where that might be a little hard to sort out,” Rebecca sympathized. “Is there anything else you can tell me to help me get started?”

“Sure,” Matthew laughed. “Lots of things. Let’s get started and I’ll help teach you all I know.”

“Sounds good,” Rebecca agreed, frowning slightly, “but try not to rip my nipple off. My future children would appreciate them being in one piece, I’m certain,” she muttered moodily.

Laughing, Matthew leaned up and kissed her lightly on the ear, then gave her another pinch, before kissing her ear once more and whispering, “Then let’s get started. You have a lot to learn…”