Serenade Of The Silver Witch

Attack of the Mushrooms

"This should be far enough!" Koharu shouted as we raced into the wide clearing within the woods. With trees around the forty-meter circular meadow, this is good for combating the mushroom mob. Yeah, we could be surrounded on all sides, but that seemed unlikely, given that the pink spores the mushrooms shot out earlier covered only a fourth of the clearing. The monsters will only come from the spore-covered parts of the forest.

"Time to deal with our stalkers. Once we get out of the cloud of spores, we go on the defensive. Go all out, but be careful. Just because they're weak—"

"—doesn't mean they can't hurt us. Wasn't that the third lesson you taught me?"

I smirked with pride in my student, then spotted the first mushrooms entering the clearing. "Then let's get to work!"

"Wait! Jaymes!" Koharu skidded to a stop ahead of me as she got to the sporeless part of the clearing. I slowed down just a step behind the panicking, pointing girl. Following her finger, I see the unthinkable. Twenty meters ahead, already in the clearing, is a horde of mushrooms.

"Wha...?"

"No way, they got here before us—"

"To think they got here before me!"

"Yeah, they really got here befo... Huh?" That second statement overpowered Koharu's, and I didn't say it. It was feminine and familiar, but not Asuna's. Koharu and I traded glances, then looked to the right, where the voice came from. Out of the forest came a girl our age with silver hair dressed in red and black. Her blue eyes went from the horde of mushrooms to us two, wide with recognition and annoyance.

"S-Sanya?"

Sanya kept running until she got to us, then grabbed her blade from her back while eyeing us (me) scornfully. "No, that is quite unlikely. You two must have brought them over, am I correct?"

It hasn't been twenty seconds, and I'm already ready and willing to leave her alone with the mushrooms. Didn't I save her life once? She could have thrown us a "yo" or something first. "No, ours are behind us. These must be yours, witch."

"Were you running from the mobs attacked to the spores too?" Koharu asked.

"Running? Of course not. I mobilized to a more strategic location. I didn't think I'd bump into anyone else... Oh well." At this moment, the mushrooms that were chasing Koharu and I came into the clearing.. Sanya sighed and sported a determined frown. "Anyway, it seems this is our battlefield now. Are you prepared?"

"Yeah!'

"Of course!"

"I like the sound of that! Let's go!"

xxxxxx

Fifteen minutes later, I watched as the last of the blue-colored Ashtray Mush exploded into pixel shards around my blade. I quickly scanned my immediate surroundings but only saw Sanya and Koharu in my sight. "Haa... It's over." Adrenaline left my system, and I fell to my knees. Settling on my butt, I placed my sword on the ground beside me, call forth my system menu, and navigate over to the FRIENDS option. I analyzed the list of friends for Kirito and Asuna, and once I confirmed they were not greyed out, I shot Kirito a quick message to say Koharu and I were okay.

"To think there'd be this much even on the front lines... Absurd," declared an irritated Sanya as the girls approached me. May I add that she shouldn't be on the floor yet? The four of us who came first hadn't opened the floor to the public. We cleared the thirteenth floor nearly two hours ago, and ten minutes after that, Koharu, Asuna, Kirito, and I took the first steps on this floor. We met the healer's apprentice about an hour after that, and then, thirty minutes later, we found him being chased by mushrooms. The last twenty minutes or so have been us fighting them off.