Kingdom of battles ✓

Chapter 5

A month passed since 50.000 players from all over Japan got stuck inside a video game because of unknown reasons. Since then, 8.494 players died, from killing themselves or in battle, leaving 41.506 players alive. I saw how someone killed himself, jumping from a bridge. I watched how his body slowly turned in to small blue squares and then disappeared. Back then I was terrified and I almost broke down because of the shock, but then we found out something. In level 14 was a special place where you were supposedly able to bring someone back from the dead. We didn't have much information about it, because everyone that dared to go there died too, so no one had any idea how it was actually supposed to be possible.  

To me it seemed like an eternity since Riku and I beat the monster from level 2. I was constantly thinking about home. It was February now and I wondered if there was still snow in Tokio. I was also curious about my family. And I hoped that they didn't cry to much over me, because I was still planning on coming back and I didn't want them to be sad in the meantime. We only cleared the first 29 levels, but I still didn't lose hope. Well, the truth was that I did a few times, but Riku always managed to convince me to keep fighting.  

Another thing happened after the players entered level 2, besides the fact that the people were actually getting back their courage and fighting. Every player had to chose his class and subclass from the ones that were possible. That way they got new special skills and knew better how to continue their life in the video game.  

For my class I chose 'swordsman', after a few hours of yelling at the screen in front of me about how stupid and completely sexist was that there was no 'swords-woman' option. But I still got a few new skills and interesting attacks that way. Then I was able to chose a subclass. I wasn't sure about this one at first, but then Riku convinced me to pick 'Strategist', after he got punched for suggesting 'Maid' and laughing at the fact that I completely sucked with trying to use magic. Like he was any better then me.  

Riku's class was also 'swordsman' and his subclass was 'guardian', which allowed him to get special skills that he could use to protect others. Even if at first he wanted to pick 'assassin', but he got punched by me again. I just couldn't let him pick 'assassin', I mean, he wasn't even able to pull a sneak attack on a rabbit when he tried to capture it for our dinner.  

I spent the whole month with Riku and there wasn't a single day when he didn't almost make me go crazy. It was amazing how he was always in a good mood and kept saying stupid stuff, no matter how many times I punched him. 

That day I was laying on the grass in the middle of a meadow and enjoying the feeling of the warm sun that was shining in my face. If there was one thing that Riku taught me, besides never giving up, then that was to also 'live' inside the video game. To keep a normal life and not obsess about leaving all the time. He taught me that sometimes I was allowed to just sit back and relax. 

I was currently doing that, while he was practicing with his sword, trying to raise his level to 20. Most of the people were doing that in special areas in the cities in different levels, but Riku and I couldn't because you were supposed to pay if you wanted to go in a practice arena, but we had no money. I had no idea how was it possible, even if we were killing monsters and doing missions all the time. We even cleared level 6, 11 and 15 on our own, which was supposed to bring us money too, but the number of priyos in my menu was never above 0 for more then a day or two.  

I watched how Riku held his big silver sword and shield that we just had to buy in a weapon shop in level 10. Even if he was pretty good at using them, for me it was just a waste of money, considering that I was sure that we could win those by beating a boss of another level or something.  

Riku noticed that I was sitting up and staring at his weapons with a frown on my face. He turned at me and crossed his arms, grinning. '' Are you seriously still upset because of that? I mean, it's not like we got your clothes for free. ''