"Leaving those two's shenanigans aside, what was your experience with the game?" Dr.Vale inquired, as she continued examining his body.

"My experience? Well... It has certainly been a lot fun for me. I enjoyed the natural environments and being able to fight monsters properly, instead of just performing the same pre-programmed motions the previous games provided you. My only complaint would be the difficulty of leveling my skills, that and not knowing how to pick up alchemy materials, although that's on me for both being lazy and busy at the same time." Soren explained, as he thought back on his various experiences with the game.

"Hm... Interesting... How come you didn't mention the people? I figured it would have left the biggest impact, by far."

"Eh... It was certainly somewhat surprising, at first, but it's not something to lose my marbles for. If anything, it made the game feel more alive, instead of just exploring simulated environments and it was a pleasant change of pace, whenever I got to converse with the people of the game. Compared to the other games, where my only source of human interaction was other players, it's definitely something that need to be experienced. I'd love to experience it more now, if it wasn't for the fact that it's now intertwined with my work."

After Soren gave is answer, he couldn't help but feel awkward from Dr.Vale's inquisitive gaze, before grabbing an AT-0 helmet and leaving it on his hands. Seeing Dr.Vale passing the AT-0 helmet, Nicolas quickly sat in front of the computer next to the bed, while she gave the order for the start of the shift. "Let's get started kids. Soren, dive into the game, so we can get started. Nora, connect the cables on the helmet, once he's inside the game."

'Did I say something wrong about it?' Soren wondered, before putting his helmet on and entering the game once more.

...

"Wait, WAIT, WHY AM I-" *crash* "Urgh... Why did I log into game while falling...?" Soren wondered, as he tried to lift his aching body from the sudden drop from the sky and started looking around. Turns out there was nothing different about the area around him, as he was in the same, somewhat empty, settlement he's been into for the past week.

"Hello? Test, 1, 2, 3. Can you hear me?" Nicolas asked, as his voice echoed into Soren's ears, before quickly responding back. "Loud and clear... and in pain..."

"Good enough for me. By the way, why are you laying down on the ground?"

"Umm... I don't want to talk about it. Anyways, what do I need to do?" Soren quickly dismissed the current topic and his attention towards the work he needed to do, as he didn't want to reveal how he fell when he immediately logged in.

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"Wait for the doctor's orders." Nicolas ordered, as Soren decided to get his daily quest out of the way, since it wouldn't take more than a minutes to do so. After completing the quest multiple times, Soren managed to get a bit of an idea for the spawn locations, so he would explore on the general areas and swiftly complete the quest, before starting his proper work. After hunting six lone vermins, Soren got the usual completion prompt and just as he was about to get to the guild to turn in the quest, he got a response from Nicolas.

"Alright Soren. I've got the first orders from the doctor. You'll be required to hunt as many monsters as possible."

"Monsters? Don't I need to go through different realism settings or any physical tests?" Soren asked curiously, as he wasn't expecting such a response.

"Those were mostly preliminary tests to figure out your current tolerance levels, as well as your physical capabilities in the virtual world. You will be doing similar things in the future as well, but not immediately. For now, just think of the first day, as a day easing you into the work you'll be doing for the foreseeable future." Nicolas explained, as Dr.Vale spoke next.

"You won't be required to do anything specific for the time being, but do try to repeat actions you've performed in the past, such as hunting previous monsters and such, like the Cutter from before."

"Got it doc. By the way, will I need to do any Alchemy as well? Since I've been unable to anything with it, aside from the tutorial." Soren asked curiously, as he used this as an opportunity to get some answers for his problem of material collection.

"Hm... I don't see why not. So, how come you've been unable to do anything with it?"

"Well, I can't find any materials whatsoever. I don't even know how to get any, aside from the arrows of the tutorials that pointed to the materials I needed to collect, which had a bit of a glow as well."

*sigh* "Have you tried examining the glowing spots in the forest?" Dr.Vale asked disappointingly, as she shook her head and rubbed her temples.

"What glowing spots? I haven't found any whatsoever." Soren stated, as he decided to go to the forest to show them that there weren't any glowing spots.

"What about those in front of you?" Nicolas asked, as Soren turned his head left and right, trying to pinpoint the glowing spots, but only found light spots from the sun's natural light going through the leaves.

"Um... I still don't see any whatsoever."

*sigh* "Look upwards you moron!" Nora suddenly yelled into the microphone, as Soren turned his head upwards and staring at the densely pack trees, blocking any natural light through them. As he was staring at them for a few seconds, a horrifying thought went through his head and quickly turned his head downwards to the glowing spot and the upwards once more towards the trees. As he turning his head up and down, that thought turned into a realization and at that moment, he went towards the tree and started bashing his head in shame, as he couldn't believe how simple the solution to his problem was. While Soren was bashing his head in shame, the other three shook their heads disappointingly, as Nicolas was the first to break the silence between them.

"Um... Should we tell him to get back to the mission?"

"No, no. Let him bash his head for a bit longer. It's actually pretty fun seeing him like this." Nora stated, as she stared at the screen with a smug expression.

"Do you have some sort of grudge against him? I have been told that you've worked with him a couple times, so I'm inclined to believe that you do." Nicolas stated inquisitively, as he turned his attention towards Nora.

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't... Who knows? Besides, we've only worked a couple of times and he'd been playing pretty well with few blunders, so seeing him screw up like this over something so obvious is a good reminder that he's not a perfect player. That and that's also for his taco story."

"Taco story? Ok, now I have to hea-" *smack* "OW! DAMMIT!"

"Get any funny thoughts and those will be your last." Nora warned coldly, as she cracked her hands after giving Nicolas a bash to the back of his head, while Dr.Vale could only shake her head in disappointment and wondering how bad her luck was to get such a team under her wings.