Ascension: Online

Ichigo, Horiya, Furuwa, and I quickly located the origin point of the scream. Qin Yao ended up tagging along anyway, most likely because he realized if he stayed behind on his own without anyone else to protect him, he would be an easy target to any roaming Magic Beasts. Of course, even if he did come with us, if he got attacked, I wouldn't be helping. If he dies, he dies. Unfortunately for us, he'll respawn anyway.

We soon came across a group of players, huddled with their backs against each other. Surrounding them were four massive snake-like things, hissing in preparation to strike.

However, we had arrived, and naturally, weren't about to just let them do that.

Ichigo immediately leapt into the fray, attempting to chop one of the snakes in half with his sword. He succeeded. But-

"No!" one of the trapped players yelled, much to our surprise. And then, we realized why.

The snake that Ichigo had cut in half... turned into two different snakes. The original snake grew a new tail almost instantly, as the tail part Ichigo cut off grew a new head. Now, there were five snakes on the battlefield.

"The hell?!" Ichigo backed up a short distance, as the rest of us caught up with him.

"These bloody snakes 're called Moonserpents! Ya have ta stab 'em, not slice 'em!" the thirty-year-old Australian man said.

It seems our guess was on the spot - this was indeed the team Hua Hua was in. The scream we heard earlier had to have been her voice, but... where was she now? I scanned the group surrounded by the Moonserpents. There were only four people, and Hua Hua wasn't one of them.

Could it be... did she die?

But right now, we had bigger problems to worry about. Ichigo's attack had caused all the snakes to turn their attention towards us. They sped towards us quickly, slithering across the forest dirt as they bared their fangs and hissed in hostility.

"Damn it, Ichigo!" Qin Yao yelled from behind us, slowly backing up. "Why the hell did you attract them to us?!"

"You shut the hell up, bastard!" Ichigo yelled behind us, and as a snake leaped at him, he blocked its sharp fangs with his sword. He tried shaking it off, but it wouldn't budge. Instead, the Moonserpent coiled its tail, before unleashing the built-up momentum to strike Ichigo in the stomach, sending him flying backward.

"Kuh!" he groaned in pain, as he slowly got back up.

Meanwhile, the other snakes started targeting us too - one on each of us. I dodged out of the way of the snake attacking me, before grabbing its neck as it flew by and pulling out my dagger from beneath my feet in an attempt to stab it. My STR stat over 40 was the only reason I could pull this off - otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to grab its thick neck at all. However, it then attempted to coil its tail and use it like a whip, similar to what its ally had done to Ichigo. Cursing, I hurriedly tried to throw the snake away from me, but it wrapped itself around my arm tightly. I could feel its cold, scaly body as it did so, and it was by no means a comfortable feeling.

At that time, my System decided it was a good idea to show me a new species entry. I cursed, but both of my hands were preoccupied already - one locked by the Moonserpent, and the other busy trying to get my dagger out. I had no way of closing up the prompt, so I just had to do my best to look through the translucent screen. It would've been great if A.R.X.A. could close this thing up for me right now, but I was the same guy who told her not to prevent these notifications from popping up - I had no one to blame.

It then attempted to bite my shoulder, but by now, I had my dagger out and at the ready, so I promptly stabbed it into the snake's body. It spasmed for a few seconds, shrieking in pain, before falling to the ground, dead. Pulling my weapon out of its corpse, the body disappeared in a shimmer of light. A hologram appeared in front of me, telling me what I got.

[Obtained Moonserpent Scales x1.]

[Obtained Moonserpents Fangs x1.]

Dismissing this notice, I immediately turned to the others to see how they were doing.

Furuwa had managed to kill her target solo. Horiya and Ichigo managed to slay their targets as well, with some help from the four players who were originally trapped, including the thirty-year-old foreign man. The only one left...

"G-Gah! Help me!" Qin Yao yelled, sprawled on the floor, as the Moonserpent prepared to bite him.

Furuwa, Ichigo, Horiya, and I didn't move to help. However, the foreign man sprinted over and pried the snake off of him. Then, Qin Yao, having been freed, stabbed his sword into the immobilized snake to steal the kill for the XP and items.

The foreign man then offered his hand, helping Qin Yao get up...

"Heh. Thank-"

... And then unleashed a nasty right hook that hit him straight in the face - right where Ichigo had hit him not too long ago too, so the pain was amplified. The impact sent Qin Yao rolling back onto the floor. The onlookers, myself included, whistled in surprise.

"W-Wah... what the hell was that for?!" Qin Yao shouted in anger.

The foreign blond man merely bent down and grabbed Qin Yao's collar tightly, pulling his face closer. "Listen 'ere, ya little shit... Qin Yao, was it? Y'know... yer pretty bloody weak, for a man who promised ta keep a girl safe. What did ya say ta Hua Hua back there again, before we began? Ah, right... 'I'll protect you', huh? When she screamed... where were ya at? When she died, where the hell were ya, bloody bastard?!"

My eyes widened. At first, I had thought he had been pissed about Qin Yao stealing his kill. But turns out, he was angry at him because of Hua Hua...

Qin Yao blinked a few times in surprise, completely intimidated. "W-What?! Hua Hua... where is she?"

"She died, bastard. To the bloody Moonserpents. I tried fightin' 'em... but there were too bloody many," the thirty-year-old man replied, voice dripping with venom. "She told me ta run. She told me that 'Hero Qin' would come ta save her. Do ya bloody understand? The hope in her eyes when she told me that. And? What was the result of it?"

The foreign man gritted his teeth, tightening his grip on Qin Yao's collar, his knuckles turning white. He looked like he wanted to punch Qin Yao again. But after a while, he let go, and stood back up, not wanting to escalate this any further.

"Hero, my ass..."

But then, Qin Yao said a few really damn stupid words.

"S-So what? This is a game, damn it! If she dies, she'll respawn! There's no big deal! Why the hell do you have to hit me over it?!"

Clearly, he had not experienced death in this game yet. The pain you feel... it is something indescribable in words.

The Australian man, who had already turned around and had been about to just leave things at that, now spun back to face Qin Yao. I could practically feel the hatred emanating from his whole body, still growing as he took a step towards Qin Yao. And another. And another.

"Is that so?" he said, then slipped on his weapons - two gauntlets with sharp spikes on them.

"In that case... why don't ya have a taste of death yerself?"

Qin Yao's eyes widened as he realized what the man was about to do. "N-No-"

"Stop. That's enough," a low female voice interrupted.

She moved forward and grabbed the Australian man's arm, preventing him from sinking his spiked fist into Qin Yao's bruised face. The girl who had done this was the person I would have least expected to do so:

Chiaki Furuwa.

The man twisted his head slightly to glare at the interloper. "... Ya heard what he said just now. He deserves ta die... not just in-game, but also in real life."

Furuwa closed her eyes but didn't let go of the man's reared back arm. "Don't get me wrong. I agree, he's scum. I hate him with a passion as well. But if you kill him here... in the end, it's still only in a game. He won't learn actually learn anything. There would be no point."

"Oh, there would be a bloody point, alright," the man said, turning back to Qin Yao's terrified face. "I'll be able ta release some o' this bloody pent-up anger I've been holdin' in."

"... If you were that selfish, you wouldn't be doing this in the first place."

The man looked at Furuwa, then after seeing she wasn't about to back down, he sighed. "Hmph."

Letting go of Qin Yao's collar, he turned around and walked off. Furuwa sent Qin Yao a glare, then did the same. As she passed by me, I spoke quietly.

"I didn't expect you to do that."

She stopped. "Life is unexpected in many ways, Igarashi-kun."

As she resumed walking once more, I chuckled softly. "She's like a knife on the outside, but really has a heart made of tofu, huh?"

Had it been me, I would've just let the man kill him.

After all... to these people, this was all just a virtual video game - nothing more.