"Trim and a wash for him, make it quick," said Vol, who was standing calmly against the wall next to the door.

"Right you are, that'll—"

"Here," Vol tossed a coin over Carl's head with perfect accuracy to the bronze-skinned man with immaculately-coiffed black hair on the other side of him.

The man pocketed the coin and pulled a sheet up off the back of the chair, throwing it over Carl and tucking it around his neck. "Would you like a full shave, or—"

"No," Carl said, regaining his bearings and realizing he'd been dragged into a barber shop. "What are we doing?"

"We're helping you fit in," Vol said in her too-innocent tone.

"What happened to—"

"Fuck, we lost him!" came a shout from just outside.

Vol nudged the wooden door shut with her shoe, leaving it ajar, and gestured towards it with her head. "Give him a little trim so his beard's a touch less…beardy."

I guess it isn't a big deal since it's just the game. "Just a little's fine." He focused on listening.

"—of either of them," said someone outside.

"A little off the sides," the barber said. He picked up a small basin of water and a comb and started combing at Carl's beard, dipping his comb into the basin to wet it.

"Must have gotten a fucking speed stat," called one of the voices outside followed by the sound of someone stomping heavily on the ground.

"Could've been a flying stat!" said another.

Vol started to chuckle.

Wow, people here are so obsessed with stats they won't even do basic building checking like in movies? Kind of a letdown. I was halfway expecting that to turn into some awesome chase where we're running across the tops of buildings and—

"You have very fair skin," the barber remarked, beginning to trim carefully with a pair of scissors.

"Uh, thanks," Carl said. Definitely didn't imagine I'd be getting a haircut instead. Is that really something people do? Like, does my beard actively grow in the game? Or is this a shortcut so you don't have to log out to change your character? Wait, can you even change it normally once you log—

"So what's next?" Vol asked.

"Hm." He glanced at the time display in the corner of his vision. Still a few hours before Mina probably wakes up and I have to make any decisions there. Oh yeah, I was gonna ask… "Is there some equivalent for guys with the white bandanna thing?"

"Other than being a man, you mean?"

"Er…"

The barber continued cutting away, doing a somewhat alarming amount of scissor-work for someone who'd said he was just gonna take a little off the sides, which maybe meant he had a different idea of what the word 'little' meant and was being a 'little' too aggressive.

"It's more like a hint," she said. "Men can be stupid if you don't make it incredibly obvious what you want."

"Well—"

"Women can too, obviously," Vol said. "I'm good at reading them even without hints, though."

Huh.

"But now we're back at the question of what to do once you finish getting pretty."

The barber started on his mustache with very careful snips.

"I don't really have any plans," Carl said while trying to move his mouth as little as possible.

"Wanna try something new? I have an idea."

"Maybe."

"It'll only take an hour or two."

"I'm listening."

"Ever heard of the challenge of Sateus?"

"Nope."

"Okay. It's sort of a thing here a little ways north of the city. Everyone who comes to the city visits at some point or another."

"That should do it," said the barber. "The top too, or—"

"Nah, that's fine," Vol said, leaning in from the side to examine his new look. "Whew, did it just get hotter in here?" She started to fan herself in an exaggerated manner.

Carl rolled his eyes at her antics. A square mirror was held in front of his face. Huh. Actually looks pretty good. Nice corporate cut. "Looks good," he commented.

"Great," said the barber.

"Let's go," Vol said. She threw open the door and waved for him to follow.

Eh, why not. Might be nice having a change of pace. Morning's been pretty interesting so far hanging out with her, and she's maybe not as annoying as I thought. The sheet was removed, and he stood up. "Thanks," he said to be polite, feeling like he'd had a positive experience getting an in-game haircut, even if it'd been pretty quick and sort of a weird thing for someone to be doing in a game—not that he had a problem with people who wanted to cut hair in a game, of course, because that was totally fine with him, and he had incredible respect for people who enjoyed doing it in an age where hair was mostly cut by AI-driven machines that were really more like machine learning-driven since there still weren't any actual AIs, though really he meant SIs, obviously, since he was usually pretty particular about his technical jargon, and a synthetic intelligence was different than an artificial one.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

He followed her out the door. "Why didn't you just use your finger snap-y thing before?" he called to the slow-walking, bandanna-wearing woman.

"Trying to avoid a spectacle, not cause one," she said, giving him a look. "Stat-seekers're everywhere in D-one. If you…" She paused her steps for a moment, then hopped forward. "If you get any stats, just dismiss the status window right away. Otherwise you'll lose at least an hour with someone following you around asking you questions nonstop."

"Yeah, sure would be awful having someone follow me around."

"Carl, there's not a single person in this city who wouldn't battle in the arena to spend an hour with me, let alone a full day."

"Oh, so you're famous?" he asked as he came into step beside her.

"Well, no," she backpedaled, giving him another look. "I just meant because I'm a beautiful woman." She gestured to herself with both hands.

"Uh-huh."

"You trying to say I'm ugly?"

"Nope."

"So you agree I'm beautiful."

"Nope."

"You're no fun," Vol complained.

"Maybe if you'd take off that bandanna—"

"Nah."

"You're really attached to it, huh?"

"Nah, but if you caught sight of my face and fainted in the middle of the street, it'd be annoying."

Carl chuckled. "You're pretty funny."

"So you do think I'm pretty. Sorry, Carl, but I already decided I'd rather only be platonic friends with you."

"Uh-huh."

Vol finally started laughing. "You're more fun when you relax."

"I was relaxed before."

"Nah, you were wound tighter than I was yesterday around that gladiator with the pretty legs."

"Not sure I'm that interested hearing about your love life."

"Wasn't about love. More like scratching an itch. And you almost sound jealous."

"Nope."

"You sure?"

"Yup."

"Good, I'd hate to think you were. Think you can jump over this?" She pointed to the incredibly high wall of the city they were now standing in front of.

Carl tipped his head back while shielding his eyes with his hand, then took a few steps backwards so he could attempt to see the top of it. "Is that a joke? How high is this freaking thing?"

Vol frowned at him and tilted her head. "Really? I thought… Well, don't worry about it. If I give you a boost over, are you gonna die from the landing?"

What? "Well, no, but—"

"Okay, let's go." She made a stirrup with her hands and gestured for him to step on it.

"Uh, is this another joke?" Carl looked up at the top of the wall—which had to be like, a freaking football field high once the stone ended and the metal started—then back down at the bandanna-wearing, sarcastic woman who was holding her hands out like she was gonna just casually help him hop over the wall.

"If it is, won't I look stupid?" she said with a smirk evident in her tone. "You should be happy. You'll finally be getting that intimate contact you've been hoping for."

The incredibly skeptical man sighed. "Alright, whatever." He took a step forward and put a bare foot onto her hands.

"Ready?"

"Yup."

"Need to jump at least a little."

"Oh." Carl hopped a little off hi—"WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Suddenly Carl was rocketing up towards the top of the wall. He flailed his arms and legs in surprise, but he continued upwards without alteration to his trajectory. He soared over the apex, starting to rotate forwards from his continued, distressed arm and leg waving, and then began to fall towards the ground. "FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!" he shouted as he came to the realization that he was gonna hit the ground face-first and there was nothing he could do about it except put his arms over his head to try to cushion the blow and oh yeah he was in a game.

Carl planted into the sandy, rocky-ish ground outside the city with his forearms crossed over his face, digging in some distance and leaving most of his torso and his legs sticking out like he was some kinda freaking cartoon character or something. He felt something tapping one of his ankles and wiggled his arms, feeling grateful for the previously-annoying-but-now-really-useful physics bug that let him claw and push his way out of sand and rock as though it was way easier to move than it would've been in real life.

"Stop fucking about," Vol said when he got his head and shoulders clear, sounding exasperated. "Are you gonna do this every time I pick the way we travel? Do we have to walk everywhere?"

Carl spat out some earthy-tasting sandy rock-dirt. He looked back at the wall, which seemed impossibly high—and also shiny now that he could only see the metal side—before looking up at the woman who'd just thrown him over it. "How'd you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Throw me over that wall?" he said, pointing in case she didn't get it.

"Mm? Plenty of people can do that. More surprising you can't, honestly."

"That's normal?" Carl pushed himself to his feet.

"Onyxfell? City of Wrath? Home to the arena? Strongest city in the whole fucking world? Any of these sounding familiar?" Vol's eyes crinkled again as she watched him dust himself off. "Did you really come here without knowing a single fucking thing about my city?"

"I came for the race tracks," Carl said defensively, starting to feel like he was always on the defensive since they'd started hanging out and not particularly enjoying it. "I'm just a noob, okay? You don't have to be a dick about it." He frowned down at her.

"Noob?" she asked in confusion, indicating to his great dismay that maybe the usual language that'd been so common back when he played games wasn't actually usual anymore, and everything had changed, and he was just so freaking old that he'd never be able to play games again in any capacity.

Carl sighed deeply, really starting to feel depressed about being in a game for the first time since he didn't have any friends to play with, and he was a total noob, and gaming had just changed way too much for him to ever enjoy it again. "Yeah, I mean, I just started playing. I don't really know where stuff is, and I don't know how stuff works, and—"

"Hey, don't worry about it," Vol said, giving him a light tap with her knuckles on his stomach. "Cheer up. Nobody starts out knowing everything, right?" She looked up at him with a glance that, despite her continued wearing of her bandanna, he felt was a little reassuring, sort of like back when he'd started playing a certain game and Tim had walked him around all the noob zones until he'd gotten his bearings but condensed into a single expression somehow. "This is what I meant about relaxing before. Relax. Be here in the present. Take a breath."

He took a breath. Why am I getting so upset anyway. Not here to play a game. Just trying to think. Getting some great perspective already, that's for sure.

"Let's get over to where we're going. We're gonna have more fun there," she said, turning to face away from the city. "Tell you what," she said, regaining her usual tone of amusement. "See that big rock out there?" She pointed. "If you reach it before me, I'll take off my bandanna."

Carl chuckled. "Big prize."

"If you're looking down on it, you must be confident."

He sized her up even though he knew the action was futile since he was in a game and it seemed like everyone moved at pretty equal speeds, even if they had weird skills like Throwing Over Walls or whatever she'd used to chuck him over the city wall earlier. "Maybe I am," he said, trying to mimic her bravado.

"Ooh, I'm getting excited again," she said, fanning her face. "So manly!"

Carl laughed.

"On three," she said after a moment, not seeming to be making any special preparations. "One, two, three."