CHAPTER 22: PLAYER VS. PLAYER

I logged in with a headache pounding like a street fight behind my eyes. There she was, waving at me again. She was bright, cheery, and obnoxiously cute with her smile, acting like nothing had happened.

Three fucking days with 0 progress because I’m stuck with a snob-ass player who only had 2 hours of gameplay each day. And I couldn’t just kill her because... Boobs.

"Good morning!" Hailie signed, her avatar bouncing with joy, expression set to the emote with the cheerful eyes and tilted head.

I grunted and gave a half-hearted wave.

"Sorry I had to log off yesterday," she typed. "I need to help my sister with some tax stuff!"

I stared at her for a long five second with my brows in a sharp angle, and my face probably said it all for her. Tight lips, tired eyes, the thousand-yard-stare of a WWII vet hearingg German missiles in the distance.

"Only two hours a day?" I said aloud, considering she couldn’t hear me anymore. "That’s barely travelling time."

She stared at my lips. "What?"

"You seriously..." I stopped myself, exhaled, and waved it off. "Nothing."

Hailie frowned, she probably have figured it out: the way I wasn’t smiling, wasn’t teasing her like I usually did. She could feel the weight of my tone even without hearing it, and so she took a step closer, tilting her head.

"I really tried my best yesterday," she typed. "And I missed playing with you."

I should’ve just let it drop, for the future of my children, I should’ve smiled and gone along with her little flower field of sunshine and schedules, but fuck it I couldn’t. And I snapped.

"You think this game moves at your pace?" I said, almost yelling, and the exaggerated mouth movement of me.

She flinched.

"I... I’m sorry," she typed, fingers hesitant on the floating keyboard only she could see, "I didn’t mean to ruin it for you."

"Why are you even here?" I scoffed. "Two hours a day? You’ll be stuck in starter gear for months! are you one of those roleplayers that never want to progress the game and just date stuff? It’s ridiculous! God I hate playing with people like you."

She stood frozen, not moving.

Hailie just staring at me, she probably didn’t hear anything, but she could read from my facial expression, tone, and mood.

It took me a full ten seconds to realize her avatar’s bottom lip was trembling, like she was about to cry.

Jesus Harold Christ.

I made this little bitch cry.

And worse... Eirlys would never forgive me if I made her cry.

"Hailie," I backpedaled immediately, my voice softer, my tone flatter. "Okay, uhhh, wait, please don’t cry. I’m... I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t mean it."

She still wasn’t typing or mouthing anything.

I sighed and walked closer, giving Hailie a hug over her shoulders.

Though, knowing myself, the hug was more for personal pleasure than actually wanting to console her emotions.

"I get moody," I said, knowing she couldn’t hear or see my mouth, considering my head was over her shoulder, but she could feel the vibrations of my body and throat. "I get overwhelmed., you didn’t ruin anything, it’s just... I’m used to people quitting on me. I guess I just didn’t want to feel like you would too."

Her arms was below her knees, not really raising up to hug me back, but I could feel that she was hesitating and shuddering, so I pat her back a few times.

She finally raised her arms, and I thought she was going to hug me back, but she only typed,

"I’m sorry, will you forgive me, please?"

So, I pulled back and gave the little stupid idiot white-haired girl around my age a kiss on her forehead.

Then I nodded.

She smiled.

Easy as cake, muwfehehe. Just gotta hope she won’t snitch to Eirlys.

Next, I also opened party chat and type, "Let’s get on with the quest, shall we? You’re going to look amazing wearing a Cleric set." I wrote as if I’m on tonight’s episode of [The Writers’ Undisguised Fetishes]

She nodded, her smile as bright as day, her eyes narrowed almost to a close, an innocent and cute smile. Something that I was having trouble deciding what to do with, do I try and keep that smile on her face forever and see how much I can get away teasing an idiot? Or should I corrupt it until she could only see me in her eyes in a crowd of people? Yet to be determined.

"Let’s go." I mouthed.

The sun dipped into golden hour as we approached the shattered woodlands, cliffs cracked open like broken bone. Before we finally entered the hollow, I noticed that we were in a sorts of clearing, a very spacious space that got a lot of rocks around.

"..."

Sy skin suddenly crawled, my hair stood up like a cat, and I froze.

"What the fuck..." I muttered, holding Hailie by her shoulder, and she turned to me confused as I shook my head.

We stood

I was at level 29, far higher than anyone, the best these players could’ve get is level 10 after a few days, so of course I felt it.

I can hear it, in fact.

Breathing, I can feel what the internet called [Murderous Intent], translated directly from old Asian languages.

I grabbed onto Hailie’s head and pushed it down. Not because I was in need of her sucking my clit, no, but because an arrow was flying towards her forehead.

"Well well well, this oughta be easy. That white hair one don’t even know what’s going on!"

Three people emerged out behind large rocks. Not NPCs, sadly, but players. They had decent gears, like two tiers above what I would called Beginner gears, a party of three guys, all quite ugly, I’m afraid, perfect to cast a minor gangster goon role.

Left guy got a crossbow, which would usually take a round 5 seconds to manually load if they know what they’re doing. Way less efficient than a bow and arrow, but lower skill floor and reliable damage early on.

Middle guy with a hook at the end of a long chain, he was swinging it in a circle, ready to throw and possibly incapacitate us.

The rightside one got a shortsword, something that was only a bit larger than a dagger, and something I didn’t really enjoy learning how to use because it felt awkward in my hand.

He lunged at Hailie with the shortsword to her throat, and I easily reacted to shield-bash him away.

[Action not allowed]

The bash connected, but apparently, it was not pacifistic, so it did nothing, no damage, no register feeling, no knockback.

I screamed, as the sword was inserted into Hailie’s throat.