She did not scream when I woke her up. She did, however, yelp rather loudly.

Fortunately, she didn't slap me. Unfortunately, She did plant a foot on my chest with enough force to topple a tree, sending me flying off the bed and crash onto the floor.

As we finish our breakfast (while Aaron moans about how light his wallet got), I suggest going for a walk.

Heck, if you're in a death game, might as well make it a relaxing death game.

The village resembles a Japanese firework festival, with food stalls operated by NPCs and ribbons hanging between buildings. The whole place is vibrant and cheerful, but it seems to be a more subdued kind of cheer, one where not quite everyone is smiling.

The atmosphere is still light enough for me to relax as a familiar food stand catches my eye.

"Hey." I call to the others. "Want to buy some?"

"Buy what?"

"Those."

"What?"

"Those colorful balls over there, they're chewy and pretty good." I remember buying some a long time ago. Or was I with someone? I can't remember very clearly.

"You mean dango?" Aaron interjects.

"Yeah, you know them?" I turn to him, surprised.

"I should, there's a store right on the corner of my street that sell the best you've ever tasted. I always called it The Sacred Land of Mush."

"Akemi?" I ask, ignoring Aaron's unfortunate naming habits.

She nods. "Are you guys from Japan?"

"Yeah." We both say at the same time. We look at each other and blink.

"Closer than any of us expected, I expect."  I scratch my head.

The three of us agreed that, indeed, we didn't expect this, and almost forgot to buy the dango.

By the time we arrive at an open circle of shops that looks suspiciously like a mall, we've already finished them off. The floors are tiled stones and the ring of small buildings create a small courtyard with a large cherry tree swaying proudly in the wind. Benches surround the tree in what I assume is an excellent place to bring your date for le baisé français. Indeed, there are several couples lip-locking ferociously.

"Looks like cannibalism, huh?"

"Have you seriously never questioned why you're still single?"

"Of course, and I've come to the natural conclusion that most women, present company excluded, can smell raw talent a mile away, and are swiftly repelled by the stench."

"Oh, no. I assure you the stench of raw talent makes most women trip over their own shoes. Your scent must be masked by whatever you don't wash off whenever you take a bath." Akemi shoots back so naturally the two of us gape at her for a good three seconds.

"Call the men in the white suits." Aaron says, a grin growing on his face. "My heart just can't handle the abuse."

He collapses towards me and I sidestep. "Rejected by man and woman, that's you, buddy." I say, forcing myself not to trip over my words.

"Good grief, my own friend, abandoning me to the dust." Aaron hitches a gasp of grief, lying in on the stones like a beggar. "What have I ever done to deserve this fate?"

"Overpriced everything you sold. You still got money?"

"I did not overprice them, I just adjusted them to my need." He says, head held high as he got back up and dusted himself off. "Of course I've got money, what's a merchant without a few pennies in his pocket?"

"Anyone who's met you." I answer, checking my pouch. "It seems I emptied my resources for the room and meal yesterday."

Akemi raises her eyebrows to me. "So, you going to shake me down now?"

"Nope, Aaron's got more than enough for all of us."

We both turn to look at him, and he hides his pouch behind his back with a cheerful jingle of coins.

"You wouldn't dare."

The warrior takes a swift step towards him. "Try us."

After we successfully manage to mug Aaron, we each go our separate ways.

I open the door to a shop as a high ka-kling rings out and a pretty young girl with a brown-ish grey braid over her shoulder steps forward. She wears a plain one-piece dress with a well ironed green apron tied over it. Her eyes are emerald green and shining with excitement. My eyes linger for a second on her voluminous chest, before I look away, ashamed.

"Hi." She says, smiling an excellently practiced merchant's smile. "Welcome to Six's Brewery and Potion Appliances. Home to the finest potions that can be brewed."

"Uh... h... hi." I stuttered. Great start. Already one "uh" and a stutter on a one syllable word? This is going to be a huge pain. I clear my throat, which must've looked even more awkward. "You have any good healing potions? Maybe an energy potion?"

"Hah! Shallow words!" She swings herself over the counter, her dress billowing, and grabs my arm in a very intimate manner. "This is how you sort potions!" She exclaims, dragging me into the back room.

Guiding me like an excited child, she points out the various assorted jars and bottles, each containing different colored liquids. Some shining, some glowing, some revolving on themselves, some changing color.

"This is the strength potion!" She says, her eyes darting left to right. "You could wrestle down an ox after downing this baby! And over here!" She continued leading me to another row. I feel disoriented, like I'm being pulled deeper and deeper into a maze of shelves and bottles. "This one is the Pepper Breath potion, one I invented on my own! You can immediately breath fire for the next two minutes after drinking it, if you can handle the spice, that is! Side effects include week-long garlic breath and very painful pee. And this is the hair growth potion! Although, you don't really need that right now, do you? What am I saying! Everyone needs a potion! And over here..."

This goes on for about a minute or two, before I finally manage to buy a strength potion, a couple healing potions, and the Pepper Breath potion, much to her delight, but that was mostly so she would stop shoving it under my nose.

"My name's Six, by the way!" She says, swinging herself back over the counter with a flourish of cloth and briefly flashing a pair of green underwear. "Nice to meet you, Elf Guy! Come again!"

Escaped from that mental asylum, I look around for Akemi and Aaron, searching for a merchant with spiky hair or a warrior with a wicked busty sword and a furr vest.

"Looking for someone?" A familiar voice asks. I need to look around several times before I spot her, standing right in front of me, and wearing clothes I'd never seen before in my life.

A brown dress with a belt inlaid in a braid pattern and a thin vest over a beige shirt with leather boots. How she managed to buy all that with her allowance is way beyond me. I also can't really imagine her wearing all that under any circumstance.

She notices me staring and raises an eyebrow. "If you have a comment, I'm ready to hear it, and respond appropriately."

I snap my eyes shut and vigorously shake my head to clear it. "N... no you look great, but..." I wrack my brains. "How did you... with only that much money..."

"A girl manages." She says, grinning slyly.

Okay, that clears it up. Translation, anyone?

We just stand there in awkward silence for a bit, I have no idea of what to say, like when we first met, or at the inn that day, or while we were hunting, or really... just... any time... we're alone together.

Wow. I suck.

"Um... yeah, hey." I try to come up with something. Why the hell did I say 'yeah', before the 'hey'?

"Yeah?"

Work, you stupid, thick brain. "Do you have any hobbies, in this world or the other?"

Nice, smooth as a sack of sandpaper. Why not ask 'what's your favorite color?' or 'nice weather today'?

She shrugs. "Cooking, I've always liked cooking, and I guess it's something you train yourself to do when you're alone. How about you?"

"Good question... Running? I've always been a good runner."

She smirks. "I can tell, after all, you ran the length of 7 towns just to get to Aaron. I bet you could've run just as fast from that Repator if I hadn't pushed you."

"What?! That almost killed me!" I snort. " Smelling talent, my ass. You weed out the weak ones and prey on them!"

She laughs and my heart overworks itself again, refusing my proposal to just calm the hell down already.

"It's still hard to believe though, isn't it?" I say.

"What is?" She asks.

"That we're stuck in a game, a game that resembles reality. Where if we die, we die." I ponder my words carefully this time. "If I told you that I didn't think this was so bad, would you think I was crazy?"

She just stands there, staring curiously then says: "Want to sit down?" She motions to a wooden bench just outside a bath house I hadn't noticed earlier.

For some reason, I make some unnecessary sounds and movements with my face before saying yes.

We sit there together, looking out into the cloudy sky.

"We both know what it's like to have people die." She says suddenly.

I turn to her in surprise, but only nod my consent,

She turns to me. "You even know what it's like to see someone you love die."

Again, I nod, looking away.

She seems to realize what she just said. "Oh! I'm sorry! Oh no! That was tactless of me. I shouldn't have said that. I... I meant..."

I wave it off. "It's fine. And besides, I'm supposed to be the master of being tactless, you can't be it."

She smiles in spite of herself. "Yeah, I've gotta say you are. Like I said, you need to work on your social skills. Do you want some help for that?"

"Why not? Social lessons with Akemi-sensei."

We laugh wildly at the idea, yet something about it clicks. Oh boy, social lessons with Akemi-sensei.

Aaron trudges up to us just as we begin to calm down.

He grins. "Am I interrupting something?"

Still chuckling, I look up. "Not really, what took you so long?"

"I met this guy." Aaron says absently. "He got mad at me for something, dunno. Maybe I sold him something in the past. He picked a fight with me, probably thought I was weak because I'm a merchant. I just hit him a few times with a wet sock and that's all it took."

I shake my head. "Man, if anyone ever writes a book about this, you should be the main character. So many weird things happen to you."

He grins. "Since my childhood."

"You know what?" Akemi says, pondering the two of us. "I think i should just give you lessons on how to act around girls specifically, you get along fine with guys."

"Nah, Aaron's a special case."

"Excuse me?" The merchant perks up. "What's this about a lesson?"

"Oh, I'm teaching him how to not act like an idiot all the time." The warrior explains.

"Give up." Aaron says automatically. "You can't force him to go against his nature."

"What is this, bully the socially unadjusted kid day?" I complain.

We exit the ring of shops to a wave of laughter, drawing some looks. I'm just showing off my new Pepper Breath potion ("Right, because I've always wanted to breath fire." Aaron snorts. "And excruciatingly painful piss? The side-effects are too great.") when an icon appears, obscuring my inventory.

It's a floating text box. One usually used to display available quests so that you don't need to go all the way to the guild to select it. However, instead of listing quests, this time it lists names. It reads this:

Boss fight results:

KIA (Killed in Action):

Tenore: Level 23

Heavensent: Level 17

Sensor: Level 30

Arthur: Level 8

Survivors:

Cave_in: Level 26

Undyne: Level 27

Gotan: Level 17

Setne: Level 35

And that was it, nothing else. Just oh, five people just died? That's nice.

It feels strange. Like the fact that we can die, really die, hadn't actually registered before now.

I remember the voices I'd heard in the alleyway. One of them, the lowest level, sounded like a kid. Barely ten years old. And he was dead. No respawning, no do-overs. Death. That's what would happen for me. That's what did happen.

The stifling silence in the town is enough to tell me that everyone had received a similar message, but perhaps everyone wasn't thinking the same thing as me. The only thing I was thinking was I'm glad it wasn't me.

I guess that's just the bastard I am. Not I'm glad it wasn't Aaron or I'm glad it wasn't Akemi.

Just me.

Finally, I speak. "Raid." I say in a dry voice. "Boss raid."

"Yeah." Aaron says. "High level players, too."

Akemi's head snaps up. I see something in her eyes, the same look that I'd seen as she faced off against the Repator. "Do we go?"

Aaron shakes his head. "No way. Level 30 players were slaughtered, we wouldn't stand a chance. We need allies, and no one gathers allies like..."

"... a guild." I finish. "We need to find a guild."