“So, can you tell me how you thought that you did?” I asked Evie who looked away from me. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry for hitting you,” she whispered. “I promise that I didn’t mean to.”

“Don’t worry about that, you only scratched me anyway,” I told her shaking my head causing some of the tension to leave Evie’s shoulders. “Would it be easier if I told you how I thought you did?”

Evie flinched at my question, drawing her shoulders up towards her ears. It was very obvious that the girl had some fairly serious confidence issues, which probably weren’t helped by the way some of the other players had been treating her if I was reading her body language right.

“You did well,” I told her firmly as I placed a hand on her shoulder. “You still have a lot to learn, of course but you’ll get better I promise.”

“You aren’t going to kick me from your party?” she asked turning back towards me with tears glimmering in the corner of her eyes.

“Of course not,” I replied easily. “Why would I do that?”

While she was by no means experienced, especially in games like this where you didn’t have autotargeting and friendly fire was a thing, she had been listening to me and following my orders to the best of her ability which was a very good sign. There were plenty of newer players who refused to listen to people who were more experienced for whatever reason, so her being willing to listen and learn could only be a good thing.

“But I’m not very good and you are,” she sniffed.

“Well that’s nice of you to say,” I chuckled wryly. “But there are plenty of people who are better than me and besides how do you think I got as good as I am?”

“By playing a lot of games?”

“Well yes, that as well,” I admitted. “But it’s mostly because I had other people who taught me. Unfortunately, I don’t get to play with them very often these days.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Evie said. “Why don’t you play with your friends much anymore?”

“They have other things to do these days,” I replied with a shrug. “Some of them have kids now, others have jobs, you know the usual stuff.”

“I see,” Evie muttered quietly. “Um do you want to be friends? I don’t have many people to play games with.”

“Sure, sounds good,” I said sending her the request. As she pressed the button to accept the request, she gave me such a bright smile that I was almost blinded for a few seconds and just sat there staring at her.

“Uh, ok then, shall we have a look at the loot that we have then?” I asked in an attempt to change the subject.

“Sure!” Evie chirped happily.

A few seconds later we were staring at a small pile of stuff on the ground between us.

“Alright so we’ve got two rabbit’s feet, a few portions of rabbit meat, a rabbit tooth and some fur,” I said finally. “How many rabbit’s feet do you already have?”

“None,” she replied shaking her head. “The other party I was a member of blamed me when one of their number died so they refused to give me anything.”

I rolled my eyes as I heard this, even if she had messed up bad enough that she could in fact be held responsible for the death of one of her party members which I personally doubted after seeing what she could do it was still pretty rude to not give her any of the loot. It was far more likely that she had teamed up with a group of arrogant idiots who decided to use her and then kick her aside when something went wrong.

“Alright then you can have both of the rabbit’s feet,” I told her. “I have two of my own so that way we have the same amount.”

“Are you sure?” she asked giving me an odd look.

“Of course,” I replied. “If you’re in a party with someone else then it’s common courtesy to at least try and finish the Quests that you do together at the same time.”

Or at least this was how I saw things. Being fair was important to building friendship and trust between party members. There were of course people who refused to understand this and instead tried to make themselves much more powerful than their party members which I personally thought was stupid. I had always been taught that the best leaders are the ones that make sure that as many people as possible were able to keep up with and actually be able to help them. Now I wasn’t very good at making friendships in real life but I was able to make friends in games using these methods, people who treated their party members like they were somehow inferior to them often got stabbed in the back once those party members figured out what was going on and found themselves in a bad situation later on when they realised that they couldn’t actually keep up on their own. Now I had never actually made a guild of my own or anything, but I did usually have a few people that joined up with me in games. They hadn’t actually decided to join me in this game but with the way this was going they probably would eventually which would be awesome.

“Um, if you say so,” Evie said reluctantly.

“Alright now that we’ve sorted that out are you planning on taking a Crafting Skill when you reach Level 5 and if so which one?” I asked.

“Umm, I haven’t actually really thought about it to be honest,” Evie admitted as she placed the two rabbit’s feet into her Inventory. “Do you have any suggestions?”

“Hmm, well that depends on what you’re planning on being, if you’re planning on being primarily a healer then you should probably be looking into Tailoring or Enchantment so that you can make your own equipment, but something like Cooking or Alchemy is just as viable. If you don’t want to primarily be a healer or other type of mage then I’ll give you other suggestions.”

“Can I get back to you?” Evie asked. “I think I’ll pick Tailoring but other than that I’m not sure how I’m going to build my character. There are a lot of options in this game.”

“That’s fair,” I replied. “then you can take the fur for now and we’ll split the rest as evenly as possible.”

“By the way how close are you to Levelling Up?” I asked bringing up my Status Screen to check how close I was to Levelling Up. “I only have to get one more kill before I Level Up.”

“Um, I’m not quite halfway,” Evie said after bringing up her own Status Screen.

“And your Soul Points?” I continued. “My Naginata Core just reached Level 2.”

“Um, I have 6 points in both of my Soul Cores,” Evie replied. “Can I ask what you’re planning on picking for your Naginata Core?”

“Sure, I replied as I brought up the new options that I could choose from. “Let me just take a look at my options.”

Congratulations your Basic Glaive Core has reached Level 2!

Please pick an upgrade from the choices provided.

Sweep: Attacks all enemies in front of the user dealing 70% of weapon damage to all targets. Cost: 25 Spirit. Cooldown: 2 minutes.

Increase Dexterity by 1.

Soul Points: 0/20

“Ok, so I have a melee attack that hits the targets in front of me or a small increase in Dexterity,” I said. “I’m planning on getting the attack.”

“That makes sense to me I think, but I’m just a beginner so is it alright if I ask why you’re choosing the Skill anyway?” Evie asked cocking her head to one side interestedly and I nodded slowly in response.

“Well at the moment we need a method of controlling multiple mobs at a time more than we need to increase my dps or damage per second, which is what the increased Dexterity would do,” I explained. “Now that might change once you start unlocking more Skills of your own or if we get new equipment but for now this is the better option.”

In all honesty I would’ve chosen Sweep even if I was on my own as it would allow me to deal more damage against groups, but it was good to see that she was still trying to learn more about the game.

“At the moment the Stat bonuses are so low for the Soul Cores that we have that we’re much better off picking up the Skills for now,” I continued as Evie watched me with attentive blue eyes. “I’m not sure how things are going to work later on, especially when we get better Soul Cores and more equipment.”

“By the way,” I said quietly as I leaned towards her. “I’ve managed to get an in with the guards and they’ve invited me to join them for their morning training, I have an idea that taking part might increase my Stats slightly. If it goes well, I’ll try and figure out a way for you to join us as well which might require you to do a Quest like I had to, but we’ll have to see.”

“That would be awesome!” she gasped. “How did you manage to do that?”

“Uh, well I shouldn’t really tell you that,” I explained awkwardly. I really didn’t want to have to explain what had happened without the permission of either Milly or Tylie and even then, I wasn’t sure that telling someone as delicate as Evie seemed was a good idea. “It’s not really my story to tell but if you really want to know you should ask Milly.”

“Is that how she knows you?” Evie asked interestedly.

“Yes, let’s just say for now that I helped her with a rather delicate matter and leave it at that please,” I requested.

“Um, ok,” Evie replied giving me a worried look. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

“Can we change the subject please?” I asked as I found myself unable to meet her gaze.

“Alright,” Evie said. “Shall we go and do some more hunting or look for a couple more party members?”

“Well that’s an option,” I replied as I reached up to rub my chin in thought. “In some ways I want to get us both to Level 2 first so that we have a better position to bargain from since we don’t know any of these people, but if that’s what you want to do then I guess we can.”

“I’m pretty sure that you’ve got twice the number of Skills as anyone else here and if I’m not mistaken your Stats seem to be pretty high as well isn’t that enough?” Evie replied looking me directly in the eye.

I nodded slowly as I continued to rub my chin, Evie was making a good point with my Skills and wait a minute.

“You realised that my Stats were higher than normal huh?” I asked giving Evie a weak smile.

“Yeah, you took a couple of decent hits out there and you barely even looked like you had been hurt,” Evie explained. “The last time I was in a party the tank lost over half their total health and ended up looking like they had just been beaten over the head with a baseball bat after two hits, so it was easy to figure out that your Stats are higher than most other people.”

“Yeah I received a couple of Soul Cores as a reward for helping the guards and they both increase my HP,” I explained quickly before she started to get any ideas about why my Stats were so high, especially ones that involved me cheating in some way.

“Yeah I figured that’s what was going on,” Evie nodded. “But what do you think, is that enough?”

“I mean, maybe,” I hedged. “I don’t really know anything about the players here which is why I wanted to have a better position to bargain from in the first place, most of the time I wouldn’t really even bother but I’ve had some bad experiences in this game and I want to make sure I have some sort of advantage for now. If we find someone, we both agree makes a good addition to our party then that would be great, but I just don’t know.”

“I think we should do it,” Evie said excitedly. “I want to make as many friends that I can play games like this with as possible.”

“Alright then,” I chuckled at her enthusiasm. “We should look for a tank and a dps to round out our party. I sort of sit somewhere between those two roles which would give us a good amount of flexibility and you have the healing part sorted.”

“Cool!” she replied, and we got up and started to walk around talking to the players. Most of them weren’t very interested in joining us or wanted are larger portion of loot than either of us but eventually we managed to find two people to join us.

The first was someone I wasn’t the world’s biggest fan of, but he was still a better option than the rest of the people that we had talked to. He had made his avatar into a caricature of the ‘hero’ look with blonde hair, blue eyes, incredibly broad shoulders and a jaw that you could use to hammer home nails. Drew was also very arrogant for someone who was obviously fairly new to games like this and kept glancing furtively at Evie as he boasted about how good he had been in a game that catered to people under 18. Which told me he that least had some experience but the realism of the game he was boasting about was much lower than Soul Core Online, so I was just a bit wary of outright believing that he would be able to handle playing as a tank in a game like this.

The other was a slender young woman with chocolate brown skin and long dark hair that covered most of her face, revealing little more than a mocking smile on her lips that told me that she had the same sort of personality that most of the rogue types I had met over the years had which was fitting because that was exactly what she was. Her name was Fern and she had been mostly silent as she smirked at the blonde tank that we had reluctantly decided to take with us which was impressive considering how much I wanted to tell him to shut up and I was used to the idiocy of other players.

“Alright guys let’s do this,” I sighed as I lead the way out towards the rabbits. “Evie make sure to keep Drew above half health until he gets used to fighting in Soul Core Online, Fern you’re a rogue and I’ll trust that you know what to do. Drew remember that in this game you have neither the Stats nor the Skills that you’re used to.”

“Dude, I know what I’m doing,” the blonde hunk grumbled in his surprisingly whiny voice making Fern’s smirk widen into a full-on grin.

“Well I guess that we’ll find out,” I replied pointing at a nearby rabbit. “Evie can you hit that one please.”

Rolling her eyes at the way I was treating her new fan Evie fired a blast that slammed into the rabbit’s face with enough force to send it somersaulting backwards. Drew charged towards the downed rodent and slammed his glowing shield into the rabbit as it clambered to its feet stunning it for a full second before swinging the sword in his right hand at the creature.

Fern dashed forwards drawing the twin knives sheathed at her waist as she ran, and I followed after I checked to see whether any of the other rabbits had noticed our attack, as expected there was a group of three rabbits that had been grazing on the sparse grass nearby that had turned to look at us but we should be able to finish this one off before they made their move.

Drew actually managed to keep the rabbit’s attention fairly well while Fern circled around and stabbed it multiple times from behind, targeting the rabbit’s back legs to lower its agility. I was quite impressed with Fern already, for someone who had been sitting around instead of at least trying to kill the occasional rabbit she seemed to be quite a capable rogue. Although I guess that she didn’t have as much HP as I did and without any control or defensive Skills yet, which would make fighting more than one of these rabbits might get a bit difficult. Hell, for all I knew she had actually been waiting for someone else and had just decided to join us for now. However, I would probably never know the answer to that question, she didn’t seem to be much of a talker.

Drew and Fern made quick work of the maimed rabbit as I took a position to intercept the rabbits which were now paying very close attention to us and as the others finished them off these rabbits started dashing towards us.

“Guys we have incoming,” I said calmly as Evie started firing bolts of energy at the charging rabbits.

“Ok I got this,” claimed our resident narcissist as he ran towards the rabbits causing me to curse in irritation.

“Oi, get back here!” I shouted. “If you get too far away, you’ll get attacked by more rabbits than we can take care of before they kill you.”

Unsurprisingly the idiot ignored me, and I heard a muttered curse escape Fern’s lips as she watched another three rabbits turn and charge towards the blonde fool.

“Shit, well now he’s screwed,” I muttered but decided that letting my party member die from his own stupidity would set a bad precedent and with the way my reputation was probably growing would only make things worse for me so I quickly activated my Barrier Skill which formed a wall of blue energy in front of the tank that the rabbits smashed right through as they collided with it before slamming into the ground.

Drew slashed one of the rabbits as it staggered to its feet and I sprinted towards him as more bolts of energy flew past my head and Fern’s daggers started glowing as she closed in on them and slammed into the side of one of the other rabbits. Drew smashed his shield into the rabbit he had attacked earlier stunning it just in time for me to remove its head with a Slash from my naginata causing Drew to jump backwards in surprise.

“Dude what are you doing?” I snapped at him as I conjured a Ward to deflect the uninjured rabbit to one side where it was struck by one of Evie’s attacks. “You’re supposed to be the one that keeps everyone else safe not the other way around.”

“Oh, shut up,” he snarled in reply. “You didn’t even try to do anything to that last rabbit so why shouldn’t I have gone on ahead when you pointed out these ones, it’s all working out isn’t it?”

“I didn’t do anything because I was trying to see how you guys would handle it and keep an eye on the other mobs in the vicinity,” I told him as my naginata ripped a gash in the side of the rabbit that I had knocked aside with my Ward. “And as for not going on ahead, there are even more rabbits in this direction so getting closer to them increases our chances of getting swarmed. You’re supposed to have played games in the past, how do you not know this?”

“Oh, come off it, man. There are four of us,” he sneered. “Are you saying you can’t deal with a few rabbits?”

“Better than you can,” I snapped back at him as I swung my naginata once more cleanly lopping the head of the rabbit I had been attacking off as he watched. “But if you want to prove me wrong then you’d better start paying better attention to your surroundings.”

As I said this I shouldered the powerfully built player out of the way and blocked an attack from a new rabbit that was even larger than the ones we had been fighting up until now, as I had predicted we were under attack from a new group of rabbits that all looked to be Level 2.

The attack shattered my ward completely and I stumbled backwards under the powerful assault leaving Drew unfortunately open for another two rabbits to attack him which smashed into him with enough combined force that his HP dropped below half. Following my orders Evie cast her healing spell on him as Fern stabbed one of them with both of her knives before dodging backwards and beginning to retreat before she was overwhelmed. Seeing this Evie began to provide covering fire as best she could, and I activated Sweep which caused my naginata to swing horizontally in front of me slashing two of the four rabbits now attacking us.

Drew being the arrogant fool that he was tried to fight them off even as the rest of us backed away cursing as he realised what was happening.

“Drew you need to run now!” I shouted as I noticed that my Barrier Skill had come off cooldown but to no avail as another three rabbits joined the party, knocking the tanks feet out from under him allowing the rest of them to pile on and tear chunks of flesh from his body.

“Shit, don’t heal him Evie, it’ll just prolong his suffering. There’s nothing we can do for him now,” I told her as I looked over my shoulder just in time to see her raise her wand.

Even I didn’t want to see the foolish boy suffer any longer than he needed to and a glance at Fern’s face told me the that she felt the same.

“And that’s why you listen to the more experienced player,” the young woman muttered under her breath using more words at once than I had heard her speak in the entire time that I had known her.

“He still didn’t deserve to go down like that, no matter how arrogant he might have been,” I said to the rogue who nodded her agreement.

“Never said that he did but that’s the way people like him usually end up going unfortunately,” she said shaking her head sadly. “I know you would’ve helped him if you could but there was no way that you could hold back that many without a proper tank.”

“Too true,” I nodded as I watched the swarm of rabbits wander away from the tank’s mutilated corpse before turning back towards where Evie was waiting for us. The petit blonde was looking at the corpse of our deceased party member with a nauseated expression on her face. “Alright I think we’re done for the day.”

“That seems a little harsh,” Evie said pinning me with an angry glare.

“There’s not a lot else we can do,” I replied gesturing at the sun which was already beginning to set. “Once it gets dark tougher mobs will start to come out to hunt and if we can’t even handle a few bunnies, what are we going to do about them?”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” the diminutive blonde snapped at me angrily placing her hands on her hips as Fern looked between us with obvious amusement.

“Look it’s not like I wanted him to get killed, much less the way that he was,” I replied irritably. “He chose to rush on ahead when I told him not to and what happened was a consequence of his own actions.”

“And you’re sure that you couldn’t have saved him?” Evie asked raising an eyebrow at my words.

“Not without risking getting the rest of us sent for a respawn along with him and I don’t know about you but I’ve already been sent for a respawn and I really don’t want to go through that again any time soon thanks,” I told her firmly and upon hearing this her expression changed slightly.

“Wait you’ve been killed?” she asked in surprise and a quick look towards Fern told me that she was surprised by this as well.

“Yes actually,” I replied shifting uncomfortably under the scrutiny of the two girls.

“It has to do with that thing that I can’t tell you about though,” I told Evie before she could ask me the question that she so obviously wanted to ask me, and she closed her mouth and nodded silently. She was still angry at me but explaining why I had retreated instead of staying to help had served to at least lower the amount of anger that she felt.

“It’s unfortunate about the kid, but if you guys want I’d be happy to join you again tomorrow,” Fern offered as we walked back towards the corpse of our tank so that we could loot the corpses of the rabbits that we had managed to kill before retreating with Evie staying back to keep an eye on our surroundings.

“I don’t have any problem with that,” I replied. “But you’ll have to work things out with Evie first as I’ve got something else that I’ll be doing tomorrow morning.”

“Alright I’ll do that,” Fern nodded. “She’s a sweetie, isn’t she?”

“Yeah she’s almost too nice,” I sighed. “It’s almost like she hasn’t had to deal with society that much, but she’s obviously got some issues of her own so I’m just not sure about that.”

“Those two things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive you know?” Fern pointed out.

“That’s true,” I admitted. “Look out for her tomorrow, will you? She’s still a noob.”

“Of course, I will. I like her,” Fern snorted in amusement. “Besides I get the feeling that if I abandoned her you would come after me and I don’t think I’d like that.”

“That’s true,” I chuckled. “You wouldn’t like it if I had to come after you and in all honesty I wouldn’t either.”

“Alright, well now that we’ve got that sorted out, we should probably get out of here before we get ambushed by more of those rabbits,” Fern replied giving me a crooked grin.

Chuckling we made our way back to Evie who was watching us laugh with an irritated look on her face. What we were doing was probably inappropriate considering that there had been the body of a temporarily deceased party member only a few meters away from us but having a good sense of humour was just something that made things easier in these situations.

“Are you two done?” Evie asked archly.

“Yes, why don’t we make our way back to the inn where we can divvy up the loot?” I asked ignoring the glare that she sent my way.

“That sounds like a plan,” Fern agreed.

Evie sighed and shook her head as we made our way back into town and I grinned down at the short blonde, it wouldn’t take long for her to learn that when you see your friends die and come back on a nearly daily basis you quickly got a bit numb to the whole dead body thing but it would clearly be some time before she got used to the idea.