Sword Art Online Gameverse x Reader

Chapter 154 - Febru-wary pt.I

It had been really quite quiet over those next few days... well, I suppose I should say that it was only really quiet for me anyways!

From what I could tell everyone else was running all over the place trying to prepare for the 'surprise' birthday party I was going to be getting in a few days, thanks to Asuna and Sachi of all combinations...

It left me with little to really do in the city of Floor 76, and nobody to chat with. Everyone else seemingly had their arms full with busy work most hours of the day, and I was banned from going to most places where my friends were congregating so that even when they were taking a break from work I couldn't speak to them. On top of that, by the time the evening would come around they would all be too exhausted to do much of anything. A lot of them would even go so far as to take their dinners back to their private rooms in the inn... meaning it was almost as quiet at the dinner table as it was throughout the day.

I ended up following suit, and decided I would stop looking for people to hang out with as it only brought stress to them about of me potentially uncovering the plans of their planned party for me.

As such, I spent the next week or so on my own again, staying out of the way of everyone. Mostly I spent my time lounging on my bed or sofa, scrolling through my menus haphazardly to optimise my inventory management and whatever else I could find worth fiddling with in my menus...

Of course, I usually kept on top of this stuff anyways, as it had grown to become second nature at this point in our many years in Aincrad. So I quickly ran out of things to do in my room... And so I started spending my days out in the field- the monsters weren't worth my time in experience, so I mostly just gathered materials for the life skills.

I'm not much of a chef or a blacksmith anymore, not since the bugs of Floor 76 set them back a good amount. But I'm sure Asuna and Lisbeth would appreciate the extra inventory to save them a trip. I did make sure to gather for myself too, though. Mostly for my tailoring skill that I picked up a while back...

But also because there are some things best dealt with myself...

* ON THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 4th *

I found myself waking up way sooner than I usually would nowadays. However this wasn't due to a change in sleeping pattern or just happenstance. No... instead I woke up to a finger poking my cheek repeatedly.

Lisbeth: "Wakey-wakey~"

Y/N: "Ugh... I should have took away your entrance privileges..."

Lisbeth: "Hah! We were worried you might have done that actually. You'll have to apologise to Rain later by the way, she was the one who volunteered to wake you up this morning, but she doesn't have the same entrance privileges as us."

Y/N: "She doesn't...? Huh. How did I miss that? I've been going through my menus for the past week but... huh."

Lisbeth: "I definitely wouldn't tell her that! A girl hates to hear that she's forgettable, and that's how she will DEFINITELY interpret that!"

Y/N: "Noted. Though I can't think of any other reason as to why that she might take better than that..."

Lisbeth: "Eh, I don't think there's any salvaging the situation for you if I'm honest! I would just apologise and avoid giving her the reason why, myself. But we can save that train wreck of an interaction for later. Happy birthday Y/N!"

Y/N: "Th-Thanks. You know... it's a birthDAY. You didn't have to wake me up so early..."

Lisbeth: "It's 8am! You'd normally be out in the field by now! Gods, you've gotten real lazy since you conquered the Hollow Area... makes me worry what you'll be like once we beat Aincrad!"