A frown covered my face as I looked up at the quivering girl. I didn’t really want to form a party with a girl, not with the reputation I was probably building in this game. It would be too easy for her to accuse me of doing something to her that I shouldn’t have. Although in fairness that could be my neuroses talking.

Seeing the look on my face the girl squeaked and took a step back.

“I’m sorry!” she blurted out. “I won’t bother you anymore.”

Having said this, she turned and ran away making even more of the nearby players glare at me.

“Really Tyler?” Katy asked me angrily as I gaped after the girl. “She was almost crying!”

“Yeah, I feel pretty bad right now,” I sighed as I closed the screen that I had been reading. “I should probably go after her and apologise.”

“Ya think?”

“Alright, no need to rub it in,” I grumbled as I got to my feet and started following the girl.

“Why did you react like that anyway?” Katy asked. “You’re fine with the local girls.”

“I honestly don’t know why there’s a difference in the way I treat them,” I replied as I walked along ignoring the glares of the other players as I passed. I hadn’t actually really thought anything of the way that I had treated the locals as opposed to the way I reacted to women in real life. In reality there were very few differences between them, and I didn’t have any problems with Tylie. Besides it wasn’t the girls’ fault that I had these issues which was why I was currently chasing after the girl to apologise to her.

“Maybe you should give her a chance,” Katy suggested. “Didn’t Tylie say that you should try and get help from other players.”

“You know what, if she’s still interested, I might just do that,” I said increasing my pace.

The girl was headed back into town which while preferable to her heading further away from town with all the man-eating rabbits around could unfortunately end up turning any conversation into a scene which with my current internet fame would probably be turned into a video within minutes.

“Excuse me!” I shouted as I got closer causing her to freeze in place for a split second before turning around and revealing that she had in fact been crying.

“Well shit,” I muttered feeling even worse about the situation. Even without her saying something I could literally feel Katy’s disappointment and irritation weighing down on me and in all honesty, I couldn’t blame her for feeling that way.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I got closer. “I shouldn’t have acted the way that I did, that’s my fault and I apologise. If you’re still interested, then I have no problems with partying up with you.”

“Really?” she asked as she reached the tears from her face. “But I thought that you were angry about the idea of me joining you.”

“Part of that was that I was surprised, and I’m sorry that I glared at you,” I apologised. “Like I said if you are still interested, I would like you to join my party, if not then I understand.”

“Um, well if you’re sure then yes I would still like to join you I think,” she replied shyly. “I’m not very good though.”

“How many games have you played before?” I asked gently. It looked like I had successfully managed to calm her down before she could create a scene which was good, but she still seemed to be a bit upset so I couldn’t say that I was out of the woods yet.

“I played Legends of Garemia for a bit,” she replied glancing up at me nervously. “The Class that I played was a priestess.”

I nodded at her words I had played a little bit of that game myself; it was alright but a bit generic for my tastes with pretty boring classes and skills. The priestess class that she had played as was a fairly standard healer type class with a couple of weak ranged spells and a few buffs. Still it seemed that she had some experience in a game which was more than some of the people that I had played with over the years. I was actually pretty used to teaching people how to play games and my friends had always told me that it was something that I was good at which surprised me considering how much worse my shyness was back then.

“That’s fine,” I replied with a shrug. “You’re playing a caster-type this time as well, right?”

“Yes, I actually chose the light magic Soul Core instead of another weapon as well so I have a weak healing spell that I can use on you,” she replied starting to look a bit happier now as she pulled out a small wand to show me.

I nodded in reply, that actually worked out quite well in terms of us working together. While I could certainly deal with two or even three of the Level 1 Voracious Rabbits if I tried, any more than that would cause problems for me and even fighting three would require me to wait for my HP to recover afterwards which would slow me down.

“A healer is always welcome,” I told her and this time she did smile at me, a small shy thing but still a smile. “You can call me Zeke.”

“Nice to meet you Zeke, I’m Evie,” she said quietly.

“Nice to meet you too Evie,” I replied holding out a hand for her to shake that she timidly took. It was obvious even to me that she had issues dealing with people so being pushy with her would have the opposite effect than the one I was going for.

“Evie, may I ask why you wanted to join my party?” I asked quietly as I opened up the party menu and was about to send her an invitation when I stopped.

“Oh, I guess so,” she said looking shyly down at her feet. “Milly actually told me about you.”

“The girl from the inn?” I asked in surprise.

Evie flinched slightly before turning crimson as she nodded in response to my question.

“Yeah, she’s really nice,” Evie said looking away slightly in embarrassment. “And she said that you helped her out when some nasty players were doing things to her.”

Well… that was pretty accurate, I guess.

Rubbing the back of my head in embarrassment I sent her the invitation which she quickly accepted.

“Alright, well shall we start hunting the rabbits for the quest then?” I asked and Evie nodded again looking happy that I had changed the subject, so I turned around and lead the way back out of the gate.

“I take it that your wand gives you ranged attacks?” I asked curiously. I hadn’t had the chance to talk about what the different magical weapons actually did with anyone yet, and I had decided against trying them out in the tutorial because casters typically weren’t a great choice for solo players (except perhaps in the case of summoners and maybe a couple of other specialised classes from certain games) so this was a good chance to gather information.

“Yes, that’s right,” Evie replied. “My wand doesn’t do much that damage normally, but I have a Skill that deals 150% of my Magic Power which is the main stat which my wand uses.”

I nodded as I looked sideways at Evie, she had actually given me a reasonable amount of information with her last statement which was a good sign that she actually wanted to communicate with me despite her own issues which gave me an incentive to continue to do the same.

“Good to know, as for myself I have a Skill that deals extra damage to my target, a Skill that creates a shield that can absorb some damage and if you’ll just give me a minute I’ll quickly inlock a Skill that I can use to create a barrier that I can use to keep you safe,” I said quickly bringing up the notification that I had minimised earlier. Now that I had a party member, I actually had a reason to pick Barrier and as such I did so without hesitation.

“Ok,” Evie nodded. “But are you sure that you want to get that Skill when you haven’t fought with me yet?”

“Evie, I’m the close-range fighter, part of my job is to keep the healer safe,” I replied calmly. “Just like your job is to make sure that I can keep doing that. I chose that Skill over the other option because it would make my job easier.”

Evie nodded at my words as she walked along beside me.

“Thank you, it looks like Milly was right about you,” she said quietly. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed I’m not very good with real people so I’m glad that you seem to be nice.”

“I do my best,” I replied as modestly as I could. Apparently, Milly had been talking me up quite a bit with Evie which was surprising considering that we had barely talked. “Besides I know what it’s like to have difficulties dealing with people.”

Honestly, I was happy that Evie seemed to be nice as well, it would be easy for someone to try and join my party to get into my good graces and then set me up but if I assumed that people were out to get me then there was no way that I would be able to make a party which would cripple me later in the game. It was possible for solo players to do quite well but being in a party made things a lot easier and if I could get Evie to work with me then that would be very helpful. I was still a bit wary of her but until she gave me a reason not to trust her I would give her the benefit of the doubt.

The other players watched us walk past them with complicated expressions on their faces, some of them looked happy that I had apparently gone after her and apologised but more of them looked jealous. As one might expect those who looked happy were mostly the few female players that were standing around while the jealous ones were nearly all male which wasn’t surprising, Evie had a pretty cute avatar not that I was going to tell her that any time soon, for multiple reasons.

It was still a little surprising to me just how many players were sitting around when there were mobs mere meters away, you’d think that they’d me more interested in fighting them and as soon as we got far enough away that I could be sure that we wouldn’t be overheard, I asked Evie just why that was the case.

“Ah, those players aren’t very good apparently, so they’ve been having difficulty fighting the Voracious Rabbits,” Evie replied glancing back at them. I frowned at this, there were at least fifteen people just sitting around which was a bit ridiculous, the rabbits weren’t so powerful that they couldn’t manage them if they just grouped up surely if they worked in groups of two or three they would be able to defeat a rabbit or two?

“Why don’t they just work together?” I asked frowning slightly at her words.

“Some of them have but ended up losing one or more of their teammates when they were surrounded by a group of more powerful rabbits,” Evie said turning to look at me. “All the good players have already moved on and they’re what’s left. That’s why I was surprised to see how easily you handled those rabbits.”

I rolled my eyes, I kind of understood the idea of waiting for your friends but in a game like this where it took as long as it did to respawn it was just stupid. Hmm, maybe we could find some more party members later.

“What would think of picking up another teammate or two a bit later on?” I asked as we approached a group of two Voracious Rabbits which I quickly checked were both Level 1.

“Um, if you want,” she replied looking slightly downcast.

“Don’t worry,” I chuckled seeing the look on her face. “I’m not going to abandon you; Milly knows a friend of mine and she I’m sure that she would tell her to kick my ass if I did anything stupid like that.”

All joking aside Tylie would probably kick my ass if I did something like that. She was certainly capable of it, but it was still good to see Evie giggle slightly at my joke.

“I guess that would be fine then,” Evie giggled, and I grinned back at her.

“See you’re doing fine,” Katy muttered.

“Yeah thanks,” I replied before turning back towards the rabbits.

“Well then Evie,” I said. “Do you think you can hit one of those two rabbits from here?”

“I can try,” she replied raising her wand which looked like little more than a stick that had the bark stripped off of it and took aim. Seeing this I nodded to myself, she hadn’t even asked me why I wanted her to be the first one to attack the rabbits which was another good sign. If she had asked it wouldn’t have been a problem as such as I was going to explain why later but it was good to see that she acknowledged my experience and was willing to do as I asked.

I readied my naginata as a blue orb appeared on the end of Evie’s wand and shot towards the closer of the two rabbits striking it in the side and knocking it to the ground with a loud squeal of pain.

“Good shot,” I shouted as I charged forwards to intercept the other rabbit as it charged towards y diminutive. “Now I want you to keep an eye on my health and provide support.”

I was going to let her try and do things the way that she had learned how to in Legends of Garemia so that I had a better idea of what I would be dealing with which would hopefully allow me to try and help her with anything that she could improve on. I wasn’t planning on being mean or anything, but I was aware that she was basically a beginner so helping her fix any bad habits that she had picked up would only be to our advantage.

The rabbit leapt over the blade of my naginata as I swung but I had already predicted that it was going to do that and I kicked out at it causing me to gasp in pain as its rock hard head collided with my leg but the attack had the desired effect of stopping the murderous lagomorph in its tracks allowing Evie to fire a smaller projectile of blue energy at the stunned bunny allowing me to follow up with a Slash that almost took its head off before quickly activating Ward and deflecting the other rabbit as it leaped at me. Evie another shot the downed rabbit that grazed my left leg as it passed causing me to curse in surprise.

“Sorry!” she shouted apologetically and I made a note to tell her that she had to tell me when she was taking a shot like that but I wasn’t too upset with her as I vaguely remembered that friendly fire hadn’t been a thing in Legends of Garemia so it wasn’t something that she’d had to worry about before.

“It’s fine,” I called back before returning my attention to the remaining rabbit which was once more launching itself through the air towards me with its powerful hind legs. Smacking it out of the air with the haft of my naginata bought me enough time to take a quick look around.

Sure, enough there were another two rabbits heading in our direction and I glanced at Evie who was completely focussed on firing another of the larger bolts of energy at the rabbit that I had knocked back.

“Evie circle to your right!” I shouted stabbing the first rabbit once more before sidestepping another charge from the other circling around so that I could keep myself between all four rabbits and Evie who was starting to look worried. Seeing this I quickly checked the Levels of the approaching rabbits and cursed as I saw that one of them was Level 2 which was more than I had been hoping for in our first fight together.

“It’s alright Evie!” I called out as I swung my naginata horizontally to fend off the two closer rabbits. “You’re doing fine just make sure to keep some Spirit so that you can heal me!”

“Ok!” she replied nervously and not long after this another bolt of energy flew past my head and struck one of the injured rabbits allowing me to use Slash to finish it off.

“Nice shot!” I shouted encouragingly before activating Barrier as the two new rabbits leapt at me. A translucent blue wall that looked to be approximately two meters squared appeared in front of the two rabbits causing them to smash headfirst into it. The barrier crackled loudly under the impact as white lines appeared in it, it clearly wasn’t going to hold up to another assault from the pair of rabbits but as expected instead of trying to break the Barrier down they ran around the wall of energy and tried to catch me in a pincer attack but one of them took a bolt of magical energy to the face that knocked it off balance allowing me to focus on deflecting the other past me with my Ward which broke immediately after.

I was really wishing that I had more Skills about now but I kept on the move using the rabbit’s simple attack patterns to stay as one step ahead of them as much as possible, I did take a few hits from the agile creatures but nothing too damaging, soon enough the last of the two rabbits that we had originally attacked fell to one of Evie’s attacks causing the other two rabbits to squeal in rage and charge at her with bared teeth making the poor girl step backwards in fright.

Luckily Barrier had just come off cooldown and I quickly activated it, the wall of energy appearing in front of her just in time for the two rabbits to come to a screeching halt as they quickly aborted their respective leaps. Evie started to panic a bit firing bolt after bolt of magical energy at the furious rodents as I chased after them.

The two rabbits ran around the edges of the Barrier causing me to curse once more, while I could dodge their attacks easily enough chasing the agile creatures down was another story entirely and I was pretty sure that Evie wouldn’t be able to avoid them could.

“Run over here!” I shouted as I quickly dispelled the Barrier and Evie sprinted as fast as she could in my direction, taking a tackle from the larger of the two rabbits that sent her sprawling, but she bought enough time that I was able to stab the other one with my naginata as it attempted to leap on her, the curved blade of my weapon sinking deeply into its chest and spraying the horrified girl with the vicious animal’s blood.

Swinging the weapon, I dislodged the weakly struggling rabbit sending it flying through the air to land with an audible thump on the ground a few meters away before placing myself firmly between Evie and the Level 2 Voracious Rabbit.

“C’mon then fluff-butt,” I snarled at the oversized cottontail, which was large enough that the top of its head came up to my knees but was obviously starving, I could literally count its ribs even through its fur. “If you want something to eat why don’t you try someone with a bit of meat on their bones?”

Despite my bravado I knew that I was in a pretty bad situation, while I knew that I could deal with both of these rabbits, even running as low on Spirit as I was if any more started attacking us, we’d both be headed for a respawn.

“Evie, you need to get up,” I told the quivering girl quietly as the rabbit bared its surprisingly sharp looking teeth at me and gathered itself to leap at me once more. “We might need to retreat.”

Evie scrambled to her feet as the rabbit leapt at me and I quickly knocked it out of the air with the haft of my naginata grimacing as the impact nearly knocked the weapon out of my hands. Immediately after I recovered from the impact the rabbit that I had stabbed earlier came out of nowhere and clamped its surprisingly powerful jaws around my arm.

“Ahh, shit!” I shouted as I waved my arm trying to dislodge the vicious rodent to no avail. The health bar in the corner of my vision was visibly falling as the critter dug its teeth deeper into the flesh of my arm as a stream of curses spewed from my lips. Gransoft might have limited the amount of pain that you felt when you took damage, but you try having an overgrown rodent gnawing on your arm and telling me that it doesn’t still hurt!

“Evie could you get this thing off me please?” I requested through gritted teeth once I had calmed down and held out my arm so that she could attack it without being in danger of hitting me while I fended off the other rabbit awkwardly with my naginata.

“Alright!” she called back and a second later the rabbit was ripped from my arm along with a chunk of flesh freeing up that arm so that I could wield my naginata properly and I quickly capitalised on this with a powerful swing that sliced deep into the larger rabbit’s front leg.

“If you have any Spirit left now would be a good time to heal me,” I mentioned as I started backpedalling to buy myself some time, activating Ward with my own dwindling Spirit.

A soft glow surrounded me as I retreated, and a small portion of my health bar refilled making a smile cross my face as the rabbits charged towards me as one. Quickly sweeping my naginata at their faces I stopped my retreat and instead stepped forwards, leading with my naginata and taking the smaller of the two rabbits in the chest which finally finished it off.

“Last one Evie,” I called over my shoulder as I stepped around a tackle that would’ve sent me sprawling as I did so, catching a glimpse of my party member as I did so. Evie was watching very closely as I danced around the final rabbit slowly bleeding it dry with quick strikes from my naginata.

Seeing the rabbit stumble after one particularly vicious cut I quickly activated Slash which beheaded the thing completely and I quickly looted it.

“Evie loot what you can and let’s retreat,” I told her before turning to the body of the other rabbit and looting it as well.

“Alright,” she said running to the other bodies as I looked around to see if we’d attracted the attention of any of the other Voracious Rabbits. Luckily for us we hadn’t and were able to beat a quick retreat back towards Ponson.

“Well done,” I said patting her on the shoulder once we had made it to safety. “That got a bit more exciting than I had anticipated.”

“Yeah I thought we were in trouble for a bit there,” Evie admitted.

“Right, well we should rest up for a bit, go over how that fight went and divvy up the loot that we got,” I said as I sat down and patted the grass next to me.

Evie had done quite well for someone who was relatively new to this sort of thing, but I did have a few ideas of where she needed to improve. Evie sat down next to me with a concerned expression on her face, she was obviously expecting me to get annoyed about the mistakes that she had made but I had no such plans, like I had said she had handled the situation fairly well for a beginner and besides I knew that getting angry with her would have a negative effect instead of actually helping.