The duo took their stances, protecting each other’s back. They seemed to have perfect synchronisation. Their swords glowed with light, and they clearly were about to execute some sort of skill on the goblins.

Jason activated his sword skill Infinity Slashes, slashing away at 14 goblins and one shoting any that came near him. His skilful footwork allowed him to dodge any sword attacks which the goblins threw at him, none of their green glowing weapons managed to reach him.

Jason thought too easy. These goblins were no match to him and Hailey, who had been through literal hell.

Jason’s blade moved like his own arm did, it was literally the extension of his arm as he slashed the first two goblins in his way.

When the two were slain, three came rushing at him with the in-game skill Flash Charge, trying to avenge their fallen comrades by making their sacrifices a good use to their group’s attacks. The goblins were soon confused, as the human they had been chasing was nowhere to be found.

Suddenly, one of their comrades screamed. All the others looked, and it had a glowing blue blade in it’s chest, piercing it’s armour from the back. Several more goblins came charging at Jason’s way, and the others suffered the same fate. The human’s silhouette teleported out of their vision, as if there was magic for him to do so.

The other members of the party looked in awe, Jason had landed all 14 hits of his sword skill on the goblins, with each one killing one. Jason shouted to the distance, where Hailey had been just running off and fending off the Goblin’s attacks: “Come on, stop fooling around Hailey.”

Hailey sighed activated her skill Heavenly Piercer and like Jason, controlled her weapon like her arms. However, her fighting was much more graceful, elegant than Jason’s. Using skilful dancing like footwork, she easily dodged any attack coming her way. As if she was in a performance, and the goblin’s were her assistants.

One by one, they were pierced using the diamond rapier she held, and disappeared into dust. Hailey then returned to Jason’s side, and Jason said: “I killed 14, you killed 11… Do I get any reward?”

Hailey laughed and said: “How about a kiss on the cheek?” Immediately after saying that, Hailey’s face went closer to Jason’s cheeks and her lips touched his cheeks, kissing it.

Jason replied after: “You’ve become more daring…”

Hailey blushed in light red, and said: “Well… After you know what happened… I can’t really think of much of the things we did before being embarrassing anymore…”

Jason nodded and replied: “I sorta understand I guess…”

After their brief conversation, which lasted for seconds only the rest of the party entered the room. Jerry had been the first one to enter, and also managed to hear the entire conversation.

If only Jerry and I were like that… If only he liked me at all… I wish I had the courage to ask, but I don’t even know what I have to do…

Being stuck in her thoughts, left Raven wide open. With Jason and Hailey distracted with each other, they were not aware that there was a Goblin creeping towards Raven.

The Goblin activated his sword skill Flash Charge to quickly move over with his one handed longsword, to kill Raven. If that sword reached her, she would’ve been done for.

Raven saw the Goblin, but it was already too late. It was going to kill her, and it was her fault for being ignorant and defenceless.

Just then, a silhouette of a person which was taller than her had appeared in front of her, taking the full attack in his abdomen, reducing his health to red and rendering him unable to move away due to disabling one of his legs. Raven looked up and saw Jerry, who said: “I’m sorry it had to be this way… But before I go I just wanna say I…”

The goblin slashed down for his second attack, Jason jumped in with his Katana and broke the blade with the sword skill Energy Slash and the longsword was broken in half. The Goblin, despite being a AI could tell when to run and fear, and this was one of the times. The Goblin ran as fast as it could, but it was no much for the speed produced by Jason’s Flash Charge. His katana had reached the goblin’s head by the time it could scream, which was a mere millisecond away from it’s demise.

Hailey took out a potion for

Jerry and asked: “Are you alright? He nodded “Here, drink the potion.”

Jerry took the potion and drank it, and immediately after his health was restored to green, Raven hugged him, placing her face on his chest, knowing that he wouldn’t die due to a hug no matter how hard, since his health was green again.

Tears flowed through her face, flowing like a river, she cried like a baby. She asked him tearfully. while having a reddish blush on her face: “Why…? Why…? Why would you risk… your life… for me? I was so worried… If you had died that moment… Our party… Would fall apart… I would fall apart.”

Not answering the first question, Jerry patted her back and said: “It’s alright now though… I promise I won’t do anything like that again alright?”

Raven asked him: “You… You promise me?”

Jerry nodded and said: “Yeah, it’s a promise. I promise I won’t worry you like that again.”

Raven wiped the tears from her face and said: “Then… Then… It’s a promise.”

As the party continued to walk on, towards the corridors of the Cave, Jason said to Hailey in a low voice: “Deja Vu of ourselves?”

Hailey nodded, smiled and replied: “Definitely… Except back then you actually confessed, unlike a certain someone here.”

Jason showed a mischievous smile: “Well, let’s be thankful we’re not as dense as these two are… After all ones 15 and ones 13, they’re both definitely not knowledgable about relationships.”

Hailey said in contrast to what he said: “Well… I’d like to bet that if another moment like that happens… it’s going to work out between them.”

Jason replied to her: “Maybe, maybe. Who knows, we’ve only met them a few hours ago…”

Hailey said: “That’s true but, you can obviously tell they have mutual feelings for each other. The girls a lot more obvious, but for the boy you could only tell from what he was about to say.”

I replied to her again: “Cliche, that line he said is such a Cliche line… Like every other dense character from any series.”

Hailey then poked my cheek and said: “Like you aren’t the same, how much moments did we have together until you confessed?”

Jason replied defensively: “Well… I was trying to keep it together until we won the simulation…”

Hailey kept going: “How well did that go for you Mr. Excuses?”

Jason then finally sighed and said: “Not good, ma’am.”

Hailey laughed and replied: “Good, well I’m going to hopefully be able to help the girl sort out her feelings, you coming with?”

Jason and Hailey both walked slower, as Hailey approached Raven who was just right behind them. Hailey asked her to walk next to her, and once they were 3 meters away from the rest of the party, Hailey directly asked Raven quietly: “So, what’s your relationship between you and him?”

Raven’s face quickly flushed blood within it, from embarrassment. Raven replied while stuttering: “No… thing… Wha…t what… are… you… you… talking… about?”

Hailey smiled and started playing her cards: “He’s cool and handsome, he’s even willing to give his life up for a girl… If only I had a prince like him, he’s every woman’s target. So… Would it be fine if I dated him?”

Raven was desperate, she knew she had nothing on Hailey (Miriam)… Hailey was in a way superior to her in everyway… She was more experienced, stronger in the game, and as for looks… Nothing could be said. So she shouted in desperation: “No!!! Jerry… Jerry is mine!”

Hailey laughed a bit, and so did Jason in the back. Thankfully for Raven… Thanks to Jason distracting the other’s behind, no one heard her confession. However, despite this Raven quickly realized: She had fucked up. Her originally beet red face, became bright tomato.

She quickly pulled Hailey’s arm and begged her: “Please don’t tell anyone… I’ll do anything!”

Hailey laughed and replied: “Don’t worry, I won’t tell… Anyone but Terry, but he won’t tell anyone either.”

Raven quickly sighed and said silently: “Thanks… So since you know… Could you give any advice? You seem to be with Terry already so…”

Hailey replied to Raven: “Take the right time, it’s obvious he likes you too. The words he was about to say in his mouth, ah that reminds me of what Terry was about to say.”

Raven then suddenly realised, that… They had the same last name. Wouldn’t it be incest if they were together? I’d better ask.

“Miriam?” Hailey replied: “Mhm?”

“Isn’t it incest… if you’re in love with Terry…? Not that I’m against it or anything…”

Hailey let out a chuckle and replied to Raven: “Well… We aren’t really brothers or sisters… We’re just married in game, so I preferred to use his surname.”

Raven said her thoughts in her mind, without knowing what she was saying: “I wish I could be like you and Terry… If only he or I confessed…”

Hailey smiled and replied: “Well… We did go through a lot, but eventually.”

Raven covered her mouth, blushed beet red and asked: “Did I… Do it again?

Hailey chuckled and said: “Yep.”

Raven sighed, and asked: “So did you fall for Terry… How long?”

Hailey replied with a light blush: “Well… We go back in around during the start of the death simulation… We met on the train… And our first kiss was well… An accidental one. But he’s been kind to me, and we got into a guild of several other players. Everyone was nice, just that everyone knew that we liked each other… It was kinda obvious, and in the 6th island he confessed to me after I cried on him, because he nearly died.”

Raven said: “I wish… We had those kind of experiences.”

Hailey replied to Raven: “Some of them, you don’t want. But I don’t regret coming here, meeting Ja- Terry was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Raven sighed and said: “I don’t know… I have mixed feelings.”

Hailey gently touched Raven’s hair and replied: “Give it time, give it time and you’ll both know what to do.”

Raven nodded, as a goblin suddenly appeared next to her. However, this goblin wasn’t able to lay a finger on Raven, as it was immediately stabbed by Hailey.

Jerry shouted to Raven who was on the floor: “Raven!!! Are you alright?”

He extended his hand to her, which she took. Jason and Hailey let out a small chuckle, suppressing it as much as they could since they both knew what was going on.

After getting back up, Raven blushed beet red and asked Jerry: “Uhm… Could… you… Could you release my hand?”

Jerry noticed her was still holding Raven’s hand, and he lightly blushed… But anyone could tell he was embarrassed by the events that had just transpired. He replied: “Yeah… Ok.”

He let go of her hand and Jason whispered to Hailey: “Reminds me of us, back in the day.”

Hailey nodded: “Yep, I wonder how it’s going to turn out here.”

The party began marching through the corridors, with Jason and Hailey on the front, slashing through everything in their path.

Luckily for the party, there was only one path forward. One thing was certain: This wasn't a maze.

Royal guards, Elite Royal Guards, Knight-Captains, Paladins, Star-Paladins… None of these titles mattered to the duo in front of the party. No matter how much came, it was the same as the first room. A slaughter, a one hit kill.

The four other players in the party were reminded, how ferocious and strong their new friends were… And to never get on their bad side… Especially not in this simulation.

The party soon approached the final corridor, where there was two goblins named: “Devilish General of Goblins” and the other was called “Supreme Knight of the Goblins”. Both rushed towards Jason and Hailey, however they were easily sidestepped.

Jason and Hailey unsheathed their swords, and rushed towards the goblins. For the first time… The goblins managed to use their swords to block Hailey and Jason’s basic attacks. It was a two on two fight. Jason and Hailey showed no signs of cooperation… Because the simply didn’t need any.

The goblin’s attempted a counter attack, but Jason sighed and said to them: “And here I hoped that you’d actually provide a challenge… Being the highest rank besides the miniboss…”

Jason sidestepped the goblin’s counter attacks, while shouting: “Switch.” Hailey, who was busy sidestepping her goblin, suddenly activated Flash Charge and pierced the goblin which had been fighting Jason. She then removed her rapier from it’s body, which dissipated into dust as she took it out.

Jason leapt away from the scene, and after witnessing all this, the final goblin still decided to go for an attack. The goblin’s silver longsword glowed green, as it activated the in-game 4 hit skill Tetra Scrapper. Jason easily blocked all four slashes without even activating the skill, skilfully positioning his blade to meet the fast speed of the skill.

Immediately after the skill ended, the goblin attempted to run. But anyone who watched knew, it was just being toyed with. And Jason ended it’s miserable existence with the one hit slash skill Energy Slash, and it’s life ended with a blue blade separating it’s body in half.

The party approached the miniboss room’s door. The door… wasn’t much for a door. It was simply a chinese architecture styled door, like those from government buildings. Jason asked the party: “So, are you guys ready?”

Jerry nodded nervously and said: “Yeah… We should be fine… Especially if we have you to.”

The others in the party nodded, as Jason said: “Well then, let’s go.” He opened the door, as light showed from the room and the party went in…