LINKED | Brothers Online Series | BK #1

Chapter 16: Theory

Hello! Did you miss me? xD I'm so sorry. Life and other things got in the way. Anyways, I hope this chapter makes up for it. I spent a good bit working on it. Please comment and vote! Thanks!
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December 25, 2022 Floor 3 - Misty Forest

Thomas (Thom) Min'

So you remember when I said we would be walking into a trap? And you remember the whole deal of those five missing knights? Well there they are, right in front of another cave complex and looking pretty God damn angry.

Or as angry as one can get with pointed ears.

Anyways, to make more sense in a chronological order, let's start right after the fight with those other elves.

Basically, right after we did combat with those guys, we followed Cobalt, the green-eyed dude with a thick southern accent. Well, he isn't exactly "green-eyed," but that's what the Trackingskill made him look like.

We followed him deeper into the Misty Forest and things actually started getting misty. It was quite foggy and I based most of my senses off of Detection, using the aid of the system.

Things were uneventful until Zara tripped over a log and that log woke up into an elite Treant mob.

Great. Just great.

She then commenced to carve it in half, but that is not the point. The point is that she was careless, careless enough to get herself in trouble when the conditions were getting bad.

But again, not the point.

Right after that, the entire relative vicinity of everybody woke up and tried to clobber us into flipping oblivion. I'm not even exaggerating that much either. I counted about thirteen forest creatures before I had to defend myself, or in the usual case, move away from the danger. I had already called for a retreat when Karim did his whole Captain America thing and rallied the forces behind the great flag of liberty.

Oh how patriotic. Well done.

So I had to stay because my brother had to stay. If it wasn't for his "nice guy" attitude or whatever he kept lugging around, he and I would've been out of dodge in the first ten seconds.

But no, course not.

While we fought, I kept an eye on my companions, critiquing their moves and skill.

To be honest, they were good, pretty good for people who entered SAO for fun. Cobalt had his MMA training and wrestling which was pretty good compared to the other quote-and-quote casual gamers running around.

Yumi had this knack for throwing little pointed blades at things, making me worried that she should really watch what she eats.

A bad case of digestion and her nearest supermarket cashier might find about five knives sticking out of his chest.
Oh she wasn't perfect, but jeez, you don't see that every day.

Zara, on the other hand, apparently put too much emphasis on the system. She can manage parries and such but other than that, she only used sword skills to deal damage. Not saying the system isn't a good tool, but I'll rather depend on my own power.

Just saying.

With that, I started to slightly realize that I might actually need to help them with their weapons. Maybe just a bit because if Karim keeps insisting I drag them along, then they'll need to be able to keep up. I'm not really looking to play any sort of hero if those three mess up.

After the photosynthetic jumping, we followed Cobalt along until we hit a row of bushes and trees. I immediately went for cover, peering out past the leaves. That's when I saw the knights. I counted four which left one other to watch Lysinius.