Chapter 6

When I saw the «Trembling Cow» appear I knew they were in trouble, I turned and yelled to the nearest groups, "A cow just popped in the canyon!" By the time I turned back, it was slamming its hoof down on a kid with a large war hammer who just stood there. He shattered as he was slammed into the ground, dying instantly. It turned, and I almost thought it was going to happen again, but the other raised his weapon in time and only got thrown to the wall.

Without even thinking I yelled "CHASING!" and threw myself off the canyon edge. Using the acrobatics I had been learning I got into the «Lunging Thrust» position midair, and with a loud "KiiaAAAI!" I launched my sword skill straight into its throat. Recovering from my attack a moment after I landed, I quickly dodged an incoming blow making a circular slice to its thigh. My entire being seemed to focus only on what was in front of me excluding everything else around. Half step dodge to the left, swinging my spear in an arc to slice its other arm. Thrust forward while lowering my body to dodge its punch. Take a step to the right while spinning with the spear held level across my back to dodge its kick. I honestly have no clue how long this dance went on. Then I landed on a small rock, and stumbled right into it's kick. I had my spear in front of me at least, but I still blacked out for a moment when it hit.

When I came to a second later I screamed from the pain, it felt like all my ribs were breaking for a moment till it was only a memory again. A couple people from the crowd in front of me turned and ran over to me.

"Are you all right?"

"cough...cough..., yeah give me a bit I'll be fine." I looked at my hp bar, I was actually only down by about a quarter. Looking up I saw the «Trembling Cow» was down almost 2 health bars.

"Darn, I must have been out for a while, I'm glad you all got here in time."

"What are you talking about, you only just landed a second ago, that fighting was insane I think you fought it for nearly 20 minutes on your own. For a while everyone thought you were going to solo it."

"Where did you learn to fight like that anyway, and I don't think I saw a single sword skill."

"I don't know, it was almost like a dream, it just seemed like I could see exactly what it was going to do." I replied. "Um... could you help me up, I'm not sure I can stand on my own right now. My whole body feels like its water." "And where did all these people come from, there has to be almost a hundred here?"

"Well the raid parties set up to deal with «Trembling Cows» ended up coming from the plateaus on each side of the canyon, so."

Looking up I saw the cows hp was already deep into the red, someone must have gotten it stunned, or some other status effect, because about ten people had run in around it and were all using sword skills while it was on the ground. A few seconds later it exploded into polygons. And a level up screen appeared in front of me. Level 11, I had thought it was a ways away, but I guess if I really did do a quarter of the cows health?

"Is the person it was attacking safe?"

"Do you mean that guy over there?" pointing to a young man lying on the ground near the canyon wall. "As far as we can tell he's unconscious."

"Could you help move him back to town, it'd be really sad if after all this something spawned and he died anyway."

"Sure, hey guys can a couple of you help get this guy to town?"

"Thank you."

About a dozen people ended up helping us back to the city. When we got to my inn, I sat down on a bench, and they laid him down on it with his head on my lap. I was pretty shocked, but I was more embarrassed by all the praise I was getting from the fight. Blushing furiously I sat there stammering replies. To be honest I'm really not even certain what I said, but eventually I was left alone. Well sort of alone, there was still this guys head on my lap. And I had been too slow to save his friend. I started crying and whispered

"I'm sorry I was too slow. I just couldn't get there in time."

The boy on my lap opened his eyes, and quickly they filled with tears as well.

"No don't cry, it's not your fault. I... we should never have left the starting city. Nothing could have been worth risking my brothers life. I should have been the one to die, I could have jumped in front of him, or charged that monster. Anything...sob..."

Grabbing his hand. "Don't say that no one should have died, a «Trembling Cow» should never have appeared there to begin with."

"Here let me get you a room, you should sleep, and I am rather tired myself." I said.

Of course with so many people here since the floor just opened up all the rooms were full. Luckily as I was one of the first people on the floor, I had gotten the largest room in this inn. I wanted it so I could practice with my spear and acrobatics, but it did have an extra bed. I invited him in, and got him to the other bed, then went into the bathroom and locked the door. I slid down to the floor and sat emotionally exhausted for a few minutes, before reaching over and turning water on in the tub. I took my clothes off, and opened the menu to remove all underwear, and got into the tub. It was steaming hot, and I just laid back and sobbed as I let the tension drift away.

The memory of the cows hoof pulverizing that boy into the ground, just kept running through my head though, so after a while I got out, pulled my nightgown out of my inventory and went to my bed. Even there though I just couldn't sleep, eventually I noticed sobbing coming from across the room, and I got up and got onto the other bed and held him till I fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning I found myself still curled up with my arms around his head. I extracted myself carefully till I saw he wasn't sleeping, just staring listlessly at the wall. I couldn't just stay here, it was my room but it felt like the if I stayed everything would just become more and more bleak. Getting up, I used the menu to change into my gear.

"I'm going out, you are welcome to stay if you want."

. . .

"I'll be back sometime later."

. . .

"Just don't go out and suicide or something."

. . .

"Here I'll friend you if you need something just message me ok."

I opened my menu and sent a friend request. When he didn't do anything, I grabbed his hand and pushed his finger to hit the accept button.

Seeing the name «Nitori» appear in my friend list I said, "I will return later, Nitori." then turned and left my room.

Going downstairs I got something to eat in the common room, then headed outside. I hadn't done my morning exercises I normally did in my room, so I went outside to find a large open space to do them in. Remembering a yard with some training dummies behind the weapon shop, I headed over to it. There weren't many people around, it was early in the morning, and most of the ones that had gained «Night Vision» so they could grind while the areas weren't crowded hadn't come back into town yet. And the majority of the rest hadn't started getting up to start yet.

Arriving at the training ground I started with my acrobatics. For these I was mostly working at getting down exactly where and how the system assist kicked in, and raising my skill level. It wasn't a workout like in the other world. I didn't start with stretching, and I didn't bother with any safety gear. In many ways this world made things just too easy, that was probably a good thing though since it had a few more monsters in it. I continued to do handstands, flips, back flips, cartwheels, flips with a half twist thrown in so I landed facing the opposite way (and sprawled on the ground every time), essentially anything I could conceive of doing. By this point a couple people had arrived probably to upgrade their gear, and were watching as though I was a curiosity. Oh well it was just like having people come to the dojo to watch a practice.

So I started the second half of my morning workout, opening my menu I took out my «Blackwood Spear» and proceeded to go through all the spear katas I could remember. Doing them in this world was so much easier all the trembling of muscles fighting to maintain the perfect position was gone the image of how it should look was how it came out in reality, well virtual reality. I still wasn't as good as the masters in my dojo, but I was pretty sure if you compared me in this world to them in that world I was only a couple steps behind them. When I finished I heard some clapping, and realized I had drawn a small crowd of maybe 20 people. Some of them were making joking insults like, "Its like a sword skill, except the damage sucks." or "And then the «Frenzy Boar» charged her and she realized she was a noob." but it seemed like innocent humor.

Entertainment was hard to come by here still, and while I absolutely loved this world, I still missed my mp3 player and anime shows. So I opened up my inventory and switched to my other spear. It wasn't really very good at all, I had searched npc and player shops hard for it though and it wasn't the stats I had been looking for. It just happened to have a length and balance fairly similar to a naginata. Equipping it I got into the starting pose for my naginata katas, and went through all of them over the next 30 minutes. When I finally stopped there was some significantly loud cheering, and whistling. As I turned I realized the crowd had almost doubled, and most of the people there before had stayed.

I could feel the blood rushing to my face as I blushed bright red and quickly turned my back and opened my menu to switch my spear back. When they realized I was done most of the crowd started to dissolve pretty quick and I heard some comments like "That was fun we should go to dances more often." but one in particular surprised me and stopped most of the conversations around them for a second.

"I'm pretty sure that's the girl that soloed a cow for over a bar yesterday."

"No way, you gotta be shitting me."

"If that's the case," a third voice cut in," we should invite her for the party we are making today, another spear user wouldn't hurt."

Hearing the footsteps approaching I turned around and saw a pair of legs, looking up they belonged to a rather massive black man who promptly said in perfect Japanese, "Hello, my name is Agil. I was wondering if you would like to join our party for today. We were planning to go a bit farther out to a plateau with a lot fewer players, and could use another skilled spear user."

Ningyo [Level 11: Str 12+1, Agi 21+7; Spear 67, Acrobatics 88 - «Blackwood Spear+4» (3S1A)]