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STAGE ELEVEN >> The Two Leaders

This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this story are all products of the author's imagination used in fictitious manner. Any resemblance to an actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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-koshirae (拵) is the Japanese term for a complete set of mounts of edged weapons. This includes the complete set of hilt, guard, and scabbard of the Japanese swords tachi, katana, wakizashi, and the daggers called tanto.

-nihonto (kanji: 日本刀) means "Japanese sword" in English. It is written にほんとう in hiragana. It may also be rendered in English as nihontō

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For someone inclined and familiar with how the game world works, and what it means to be a warrior in every game, Hirano Yuki expected that his solo quest would involve more fighting than anything else.

This brings him to this current situation questioning why he was being asked to save a cat in distress from a tree.

Are you fucking kidding me?!

As far as he could remember when they first entered the game, his name started to earn leverage when he beheaded a Class C boss monster while smiling as he bathed in its blood.

This was such a downgrade from that!

The Blood Princess stared at probably the biggest tree he had seen in this world so far, looking above he saw a fat, orange tabby cat lounging on one of its thick branches. Hands on his hips, Yuki sighed and sighed and sighed some more before turning in irritation to Aoi who was standing beside him in his beast character looking rather calm.

"Why is my mission connected with yours again?" Yuki asked him, probably for about the umpteenth time now since Aoi explained to him, that assisting the woman with his cat, will start Aoi's solo quest.

Aoi patiently answered, "If you're going to complain might as well do that to Eiko, because I didn't pick the mission. You did."

And how in the world was he supposed to get his daisho by helping this woman with her cat? Yuki thought bitterly to himself. He was expecting something challenging, something worthy of reward. Yet, the moment he spoke to that NPC lady who gave him the mission, he was told to fetch her cat that was stuck in the tree.

"You should be thankful," Aoi added. "At least you don't need to fight a high-ranking monster, or follow storyline after storyline just to get your prize."

Frowning deeply, until his brows almost form one straight line, Yuki gazed at Aoi meaningfully, "Just when did you become an expert in quests? Aren't you the only one in the group that has zero knowledge about everything?"

That wasn't true though. Although all of his friends weren't knowledgeable about games, specifically an MMORPG, they were all willing to learn and since playing "Incarnate" they become so invested in it that it has become part of their daily routine. Aoi, for instance, was more active in this game and vocal about his feelings in comparison to the Aoi outside of the game.

Yuki took a deep breath, it appears that he wasn't winning this dispute anytime soon. He prepared himself in climbing the humongous tall tree, puzzled over the fact that a chubby cat was able to ascent without even fearing the height.

It wasn't like Yuki was scared of heights, he grew up visiting theme parks, especially Tokyo Disneyland, and even went there with Masami, Hikaru, and Aoi last year. But he wasn't in the real world right now but in a game world, which means anything could happen without a moment's notice. What was the possibility of an innocent quest turning sideways?