Chapter 5: Off We Go, Beyond the Town

"Um, Sun-chan? Won’t you come over here and have a little talk with your big sis?"

With a bright smile, the girl called out my character name, "Sun." Her name was Meiri, the same age as me and Eiji—a 16-year-old high schooler. Just moments ago, she’d been brimming with hostility toward Eiji, but now she radiated such refreshing charm it was almost hard to believe.

Apparently, she was the sort who openly declared herself a lady on a daily basis. The instant she thought Eiji was making a little girl player cry, she lost her cool and went on a rampage. Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, though, she quickly apologized to Eiji. Impulsive, yes, but not a bad person at heart.

"Ahh, peeking out from hiding like that is adorable, nyaaa…"

"…Sun, relax. She’s not the type to actually lay hands on anyone. Probably."

"…………"

I couldn’t see how that was supposed to be reassuring. Hiding behind one of the tavern’s corner pillars, I watched nervously. By the way, I’d already found the logout button fairly quickly—didn’t get to use it, though.

"Y-yeah, that’s right! I’d never do anything weird without consent!"

"So you would if there was consent…"

So she would if there was consent… My mental snark matched Eiji’s word for word. Great, perfect timing for unwanted synchronicity. She might not be a villain, but to me, she was still an S-class dangerous individual. Red Riding Hood never threw herself willingly into the jaws of the wolf, did she?

To think the first player I learned the name of outside my circle turned out to be a pervert like this. VRMMOs were proving far scarier than I’d imagined.

"I kinda get what you’re thinking, but she’s… well, a special case."

Ibuki tried to smooth things over, but I already knew that. If this game were crawling with lolicons, I’d uninstall in a heartbeat. Still, the fact that I ran into one on my very first try didn’t exactly bode well.

"……"

Still, glaring at each other forever wasn’t going to help. With no choice, I raised my inner DEFCON level and edged closer to her. Ten meters between us—considering the agility she’d just displayed, this was my interception threshold. Any closer and I wouldn’t be able to react in time if the beast pounced.

"The closer I look, the cuter you are! What’s with this perfect avatar design?! Ahh, I wanna pet you! Hug you! Rub my cheek against youuu!"

She suddenly pressed her hands to her cheeks and began wiggling in some bizarre dance. I promptly extended my interception threshold by another three meters, lest my sanity get drained.

　　　Online★Communication
　　　　　　　　Contact.00-5『Off We Go, Beyond the Town』

"By the way, Sun-chan, your outfit looks magic-based, right? Which class did you pick?"

After that incident, she must have calmed down a bit, because she kept a respectable distance. Thanks to that, nothing more happened, and we were able to break through the crowd and accept the tutorial quest. Now the four of us—Eiji, Ibuki, Meiri, and myself—were walking east through the gate toward the plains where the quest was set. That’s when Meiri suddenly asked me the question.

『Enchanter. Specializing in buffs.』

"Hee, that’s unusual…"

I pulled up the text input window from the menu, typed it out, and displayed it. Her expression faltered a little. Enchanter with a buff focus wasn’t exactly a trash build, so what was making her look like that?

"Meiri, you don’t seem as lively all of a sudden."

Eiji, walking between us, seemed to notice too. He looked concerned at her uncharacteristic lack of energy. She glanced at my face for a moment, then spoke with a hint of sadness.

"Well, yeah, I mean… I did lose my head a bit, but… did I make you hate me?"

"?"

"Really? Doesn’t look to me like he hates you that much. Cautious, sure, but not hostile."

I tilted my head. I wasn’t avoiding her out of dislike, just caution. But maybe I had kept too much distance? Eiji seemed equally puzzled, realizing I didn’t dislike her.

"Mm, no, it’s just… you haven’t spoken a single word to me since we met…"

――Ah. So that’s it. She thought my silence meant I didn’t even want to talk to her. Truth was, I hadn’t spoken a single word since we met, relying only on chat. Voice chat was the norm in games these days—one of the main reasons gender-faking was nearly impossible. Since your natural voice came through, even changing your avatar’s gender wouldn’t fool anyone. Because of that, almost no one used text chat as their main form of communication.

"Ah, no, you’ve got it wrong. He can’t talk."

"Huh?"

Eiji explained with a wry smile, and Meiri’s eyes widened.

『A while back, something happened… I ended up with psychogenic aphonia, so I can’t speak anymore. I thought maybe I’d manage inside the game, but… turns out it’s impossible here too.』

"Eh… ah, s-sorry, I didn’t realize at all…"

When I elaborated, her face stiffened as though she’d just made a terrible blunder. She quickly bowed, looking apologetic. For me, I’d already accepted it about a year ago—“what’s done is done”—so it didn’t bother me anymore. But to others, it could feel like something they needed to tread carefully around. I should’ve mentioned it earlier.

『Really, don’t worry about it. I just forgot to mention it since I haven’t talked to anyone besides Eiji and Ibuki for a while. So I’ll be sticking to text chat only, if that’s okay.』

"Y-yeah… got it, I’ll keep that in mind, okay? Still, you’re awfully mature for your age."

Just when I thought she’d accepted things, a new doubt arose. How old did she think I was, exactly? For some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling she was treating me like a friend’s little sister. Maybe I should clear that up.

『Also, just so you know—I’m 16. Same age as you.』

"Huh, really? That’s surpri… eeeeeeeeh!?"

Meiri’s shriek echoed across the plaza before the East Gate, drawing everyone’s eyes on us yet again. Was it simply impossible for me to live quietly in this world? I had to spend more time explaining, and in the end, the three of us agreed to cover it up by saying I’d always been unusually small for my age. If rumors spread that I was some bug-abusing genderbender, I’d stick out like a sore thumb in the worst possible way.

Even if it was for self-preservation, it was still another layer added to the growing mountain of lies. I sighed quietly to myself.

About ten minutes after the scene at the East Gate, I was lying on my back in the grasslands, staring up at the sky. The wind and even the scents felt artificially recreated—the breeze tickling my cheeks, the faint fragrance of wildflowers carried with it. It all made me feel like I was really outside. To think that countless programmers had worked themselves ragged just to bring this to life… I could only admire them.

Ahh, maybe I’ll just take a nap here… I let my eyes drift shut.

"Ahhh!?"

"!!?"

Only to get body-checked in the ribs by a translucent, leaf-green, bunny-shaped slime and sent rolling across the grass again. Apparently, reality wasn’t going to let me escape.

――Yes, I was currently being hunted down by the weakest monster in the game’s first field.

The eastern grasslands were home to creatures called Zelits—the mascot-tier monsters occupying the absolute bottom rung of 『Aether Frontier』. In simple terms, they were slime-like beings shaped like chibi rabbits. Cute to look at, maybe, but from where I stood, they were anything but cute.

"Ahh… guess this isn’t working out, huh?"

Weak in name only—just a short distance away, a swordsman boy was tearing through three of them at once, while elsewhere an archer girl was picking them off with decent accuracy from afar. Both had beginner gear. These things were clearly not meant to be strong opponents.

"～～～!!"

So the problem was obvious. To put it bluntly, I was just too weak. At only about 120 cm tall, the 80 cm starter sword they’d given me was absurdly oversized. I didn’t have the muscle strength or the know-how to use it properly—just raising it was a chore. And no matter how weak, a monster was still a monster; they weren’t about to sit still and let my sluggish swings land. Instead, they kept exploiting openings to body-slam me around.

The damage wasn’t much, and the pain barely registered as more than being shoved—but the mental toll of being toyed with by the weakest monster in the game was brutal. My spirit was on the verge of breaking. The very first quest was to defeat ten of them, and I hadn’t managed to down even one on my own.

To make matters worse, I was being knocked around the field like a soccer ball. Honestly, just not crying was an achievement at this point. Still, asking Eiji and the others for help right away was too pathetic. At least one of them, I wanted to defeat myself. That’s why I’d asked the three of them to just watch for now…

"Sigh… I can’t take watching this anymore. Meiri’s about at her limit too. Let’s help already."

"Sun-chan! Don’t worry, I’ll save you right away!"

Finally, Ibuki lost his patience and gave the go-ahead. Honestly, I was grateful—my limit was near too. But still, I couldn’t hide my frustration.

Come to think of it, I never did manage to stop her from treating me like a child. Even though we’d covered with the “small for his age” story, the way Eiji and Ibuki nodded so vaguely only made it look like I was a kid desperately trying to act grown-up. I didn’t expect things to go smoothly, but couldn’t they work out in my favor just once?

"Haaaaaa!!"

The moment Ibuki gave the signal, Meiri—(she’d told us to just call her by name)—charged in with a one-handed sword and large shield. With the momentum of her dash, she slammed her shield straight into the Zelit. The creature burst apart on impact, scattering into motes of light. For something that had tormented me for several long minutes, its end was strangely fleeting… maybe even a little grotesque. And yet, I couldn’t help feeling a pang of pity. Perhaps because it had all been so one-sided.

I caught a change at the edge of my vision—the quest progress window updating. Since we were in a party, it seemed her kill counted as mine too. Unfortunately, thanks to the level difference, I barely got any experience points out of it.

“Are you okay?”
“…”

I pushed myself up and gave a small nod. Before I could brush myself off, Meiri bent down and started patting the grass and dust off my knees and backside. Tiny particles scattered into the air and dissolved like glitter, and I couldn’t help but be impressed at the level of detail. No wonder it had taken hundreds of volunteers working for years to build this game.

“If swinging’s too hard, maybe try thrusting instead… Riva, can you bind?”

“No problem.”

“Alright then. Ace and I will pull them over—once Riva binds one, we’ll pick them off one by one.”

“Got it… geez, this must be what it feels like to be a parent bird feeding its chicks.”

Following Meiri’s brisk instructions, Eiji gave a shrug and headed off to draw aggro, while Ibuki stood at my side with a thick tome inscribed in strange, arcane letters. Confirming they were in position, Meiri raised her shield high. The metal suddenly blazed red—

“Haah!”

With a thunderous crack, she slammed it down. Red ripples burst outward, expanding in a wide circle—twenty paces, maybe twelve meters. Several Zerlits caught in the blast were knocked back, little white speech bubbles popping up over their heads with bright red anger marks inside. Literal aggro icons.

“That’s the Knight’s shield skill—≪Taunt≫.”

She smoothly parried the lunging Zerlits, throwing me a playful wink as she did. She must’ve been a shield-specialized Knight. Looking closely, her shield wasn’t just sturdy—it was high-quality gear. Which meant… was she actually pretty high level?

I didn’t get a chance to answer that thought. Ibuki snapped his book open, raising a hand over the page. Light spilled from the tome, sketching glowing geometric patterns into the air. Shimmering waves of brilliance scattered into the sky, folding into one another, and then unfurling again—an ethereal display, like something straight out of an RPG cutscene. I couldn’t help but stare in awe.

“And this… is a Warlock spell. ≪Spark Web≫!”

The sigil flared, blindingly golden, followed by a crack of thunder. Countless lightning bolts burst forth, weaving intricate arcs through the air before slamming into the charging monsters. They didn’t even have time to notice before they were riddled with bolts, their bodies convulsing and flickering with sparks. Frozen stiff, they could barely move at all.

“Alright, your turn, Sun-chan.”

“…”

Meiri planted her shield into the dirt and gave me a warm smile. I nodded, gripping my oversized sword. The parent bird had brought the meal right to my beak—now it was up to me to eat.

I had no shortage of grudges against these things… but still, for the sake of my experience points, may you rest in peace. Its round, innocent eyes looked up at me, stabbing my conscience with guilt even now. Still, I raised the blade high, and with a deep breath, swung it down.

Meiri gathered the mobs, Ibuki locked them down, and I delivered the finishing blow. In just ten minutes of this efficient farming routine, every quest I’d accepted was already complete. If I’d been solo, I probably couldn’t have cleared even one of them. More likely, I’d have been flattened by the Zerlits and sulking back at the respawn church.

With the hunt wrapped up, I slumped under the shade of a tree. Just thinking about the masochistically long grind ahead was enough to make me a little depressed. Meiri, however, gazed off into the distance with a frown.

“Still… just how far did he go?”

“Almost ten minutes now? That’s enough to reach the edge of the plains.”

Come to think of it, Eiji hadn’t returned once since leaving. If he had some errand to deal with, he would’ve sent a message. Pulling up my friend list, I confirmed he was still logged in—still here on this field.

『What if he ran into someone he knows and got caught up talking?』

“Well… not impossible, I suppo… se…?”

Ibuki froze mid-sentence, his expression twisting into one of sheer disbelief. Meiri and I followed his gaze, and instantly mirrored the same look.

Eiji was sprinting back across the plains. That much was fine. The problem was behind him.

A massive tree—at least ten meters tall—was thundering after him, moving with unnerving dexterity on what looked like legs… or maybe roots. Whatever they were, it was running. And it was absolutely not the sort of monster that should appear in a beginner field.

Its name: Forest Walker. Just as the name implied, a towering tree-type monster that roamed the woods. And not just any monster—this was a field boss.

I’d seen it mentioned before while browsing hunting guides on the wiki. The infamous “newbie killer” of the ≪Deepgreen Forest≫, the zone next to the beginner plains. With its overwhelming reach and ridiculous durability, it was designed to teach fresh players the harsh reality of this game—right after they thought they’d graduated from the newbie stage. Out of fear, trauma, and maybe a trace of respect, players had dubbed it “Professor Walker.” And there he was, right in front of us.

““What the hell did you drag THAT over here for!?””

Meiri and Ibuki’s voices overlapped in a perfect chorus.

Meanwhile, one particular forum post resurfaced in my memory—“The scariest thing about Professor Walker? Just when you think you’re safe leaving the forest, he’ll chase you all the way into the plains.”

This game’s seamless field transitions had never felt more like a curse.

…Is running even an option here?