“I’m back~!” Q said cheerfully as she appeared in a flash of light. Looking around she saw that neither Brie nor Kukis were anywhere to be seen, though according to her friends list they were still online. It was now nighttime and the hideout was very quiet, without a single person to be found. Well, the girls have their own houses to go back and sleep in I suppose. She thought idly as she wandered around the dark area.
When she passed by a hallway she noticed that there was a light on at the far end. Feeling adventurous, she decided to investigate the light as she slowly crept along the hallway, moving silently so that she wouldn’t be heard. Suddenly a loud *ding* came out of nowhere, almost causing Q to jump out of her skin. Holy crap that scared me. Now… what’s that message? As she was reading the window in front of her another one appeared right after.
[New Skill] - Stealth (Active, No cost, 5 minute cool-down) Activating this skill allows you to blend into the shadows, making you harder to find. Any fast movements or combat oriented actions will break stealth.
Smiling, Q sent a response message saying that she’d meet them outside soon. After she sent the message, Q activated [Stealth] and approached a slightly open door that was letting out the light. As she approached, she heard a voice, and once she got close enough she was able to make out what was being said.
“...llo. *Ahem* Hello! Oh no, that sounds too cheery. Um… Hello~. No, that doesn’t sound right either… Ooh this is so difficult.”
Q recognized the voice as Lily’s, and once she did she let out a mischievous grin as she disabled her stealth and barged into the room. “HELLO!” She said with a shout.
[Cruel Aura Activated]
“AAAAAH!!!”
The owner of the voice turned out to be Lily, who was facing a mirror. Once Q shouted out, Lily screamed in panic and began throwing objects at Q with monstrous strength. “A GHOST!!” Shocked at the speed of which the objects were approaching her, Q immediately pulled out her dagger and began to deflect them as she tried to calm down Lily. “Lily, it’s just me! It’s Q!” At first, Lily ignored her voice and kept throwing things in a panic, but eventually she stopped (probably because she had run out of things to throw).
“D- don’t hurt me ghost. I’m a good girl… I’m a… a… Q? Is that you?”
“Ahaha, yeah, it’s me.” Q said while a cold sweat dripped down her back. That was CLOSE! If I didn’t deflect those items I probably would've died. “Sorry for startling you. I didn't think you'd have that strong of a reaction.” She said with a weak smile.
“Oh, I apologize as well. I don't know what came over me. All of a sudden I was hit with a strong sense of fear and lost control of myself.” Lily apologized while Q thought to herself, I am definitely not telling her that was my fault. To change the subject, Q asked what Lily was doing here at this time of night.
“Nothing! Absolutely nothing at all! Eheheh… heh… You heard me practicing didn't you?”
“Yup.”
“Ooh, this is so embarrassing…” Lily hid her blushing face with her hands and crouched down, turning away from Q.
Q already knew what she was doing, but for courtesy's sake she asked, “Were you practicing how to greet people?”
“I… that's… yes. I've always been a shy girl so I decided to practice speaking with people. I haven't had much success so far though…”
How admirable, Q thought. Before she could respond though two more people barged into the room. “Q, are you okay!? We heard screaming and… oh, hello Lily. What are you doing here?” Kukis looked panicked but once she saw that neither girl was harmed she relaxed. Brie on the other hand still looked quite worried as she checked if Q had any injuries before looking at the messy room. “Are you alright? It sounded like a great struggle. What happened?” She asked with a concerned tone.
“We’re fine, though thanks for asking. Anyway, perfect timing you two!” Q said with a smile. “We’re going to help Lily get over her shyness.”
“Huh? Uh… okay.” Kukis looked confused but still decided to help out anyway. Brie nodded in consent as well, and hearing that all three of them were willing to help her, Lily let out a large smile. “Will you really help? Thank you everyone, I'll try my best!”
[New Quest] - Meet and Greet
[Objective]: Help Lily with greeting people.
[Progress]: 0/50 people greeted.
[Rewards]: Knitted object of your choice.
“Okay! While we wait for people to actually be awake so we can greet them, let’s talk over our game plan.” Q said, indicating for the other girls to sit down.
“Game plan?” Kukis questioned. “Why do we need a game plan? Isn’t just going up to someone and saying ‘Hello’ good enough?”
“Tsk tsk. Naive little Cookie, you underestimate the challenge of greeting a complete stranger.”
“Exactly!” Unexpectedly, Brie spoke up and began to get heated up in her speech. “When you are in the vicinity of a complete stranger, it is incredibly difficult to speak. You do not know how they would react, and simply finding the correct words to say is a challenge! Even if you prepare yourself, the real deal is vastly different from practicing by yourself. Simply by being in front of someone you do not know causes you to be silent, and before you know it, anxiety strikes! Greeting a stranger on the road is an ordeal that even an amazing person such as myself has trouble with… stop snickering, Q.”
“Yes! You understand my struggle!” Unexpectedly Lily found a common connection with Brie, and the two of them immediately hit it off and began talking about their problems when trying to talk to people.
“Despite saying that they find it hard to talk to strangers, they’re talking up a storm right now.” Kukis said as she watched the two with a half-surprised, half-amazed look.
“That’s because it’s easier for people to talk about something they have in common. It seems both of them are pretty shy, so I guess they found a similarity in each other.” Q began to move around the room, cleaning it up. Kukis joined her as well, and the two cleaned up the mess while Brie and Lily continued to talk the night away.
*A few hours later*
The sun rose over the horizon, illuminating the town with a bright glow. Slowly people rose out of their beds and began to walk about doing their usual business. The town of Foria slowly came back to life, and within half an hour the streets were filled with the townspeople and players. As the main square became busy, a group of four girls were standing at the main gate, waiting for it to open.
“I seriously can’t believe you two kept talking the entire time.” Kukis let out a tired sigh while watching the crowd of people mill about.
“Ah, I’m very sorry. It’s just that I was so happy finding someone else who shares my problems. I apologize for the trouble I've caused.” Lily lowered her head and apologized profusely.
“Wait, I wasn’t angry. Stop. Stop apologizing! You’re making me feel bad!”
Q laughed as she watched Kukis get hit with a barrage of apologies. When Kukis finally got Lily to stop apologizing, the gates began to open. While that was going on, Brie approached Q and asked, “Are you sure this is going to work? Do you not think that talking to other players immediately is too high of a hurdle for Lily?”
“Of course this will work. Besides, she has to be talking to other players if she really wants to learn how to greet strangers. After all, for the people of this world who’s stranger than the players? And besides, we’re all here for backup so nothing bad will happen. Oh, here comes a party. Let’s get this show on the road!”
A party of 4 players approached the gate while talking about what they’re going to hunt next.
“Alright. Since Leif and Frey just reached level 10 we can head out to the forest now.”
“Yeah! I can’t wait to try out my new skills.”
“Make sure you guys have emergency recovery items. I don’t want to waste all of my mana healing you guys because of some stupid mistake again.”
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“Hold up guys, it seems someone is waiting for us at the gate.”
Currently, Lily was standing in the center of their path, blocking their way forward. She looked quite nervous, and looked behind her towards Q and the rest for reassurance. Q and Kukis both gave her a thumbs up, while Brie nodded and gave her an encouraging look. Filled with confidence, Lily took a deep breath and faced the party of players.
“G… Good morning!”
“Huh? Uh… good morning.”
“Mornin’.”
“Good day.”
“Good morning.”
Each of the players looked slightly confused, but they still properly returned the greeting and then passed by Lily. Once the players had gone, Lily excitedly ran back towards her friends saying, “I did it! I did it!”
[Quest Progress] - 4/50 people greeted
“Nice job!” Kukis tried giving her a high-five but Lily didn’t recognize the gesture, so she was left hanging. Fortunately Q completed the high-five so Kukis wouldn’t feel so sad. “Good work Lily.” Q said, giving Lily a nod.
“Congratulations Lily.” Brie let out a gentle smile. “You were able to greet them properly.”
“Thank you… everyone…” Finally being able to get over her shyness even a little bit, Lily felt incredibly happy and almost began to shed tears.
“Now now, you can cry about this later.” Q said as she reached up to wipe the tears forming at the corner of Lily’s eyes. “After all, you still have a lot of people left to greet right?”
Hearing Q’s words, Lily nodded and wore a determined look on her face. Then she went back to stand in front of the gate to greet more people.
“Hey Q, just wondering…” Kukis began, “Is it really okay for us not to do anything? I mean, even by my standards this quest is easy.”
“You haven’t realized it?”
“Realized what?”
“The real meaning to this quest.” Q explained. “It’s not about Lily saying ‘hello’ to people, it’s about giving her confidence and helping her get over her shyness. In the end Lily is the one who needs to greet people, so she needs to overcome her own issues. Us players are here to help her do that, not just to force her to say hello to every passing person.”
“Wow… I didn’t know that it was that significant.”
“Yeah… We really have to thank Brie for this one. She’s the one who gave Lily the confidence to do this task.”
“Really? Even though all they did was talk?”
Q looked at Kukis with a slightly exasperated face. “They did more than just ‘talk’, they became ‘friends’. Just knowing that you have a friend behind you, ready to support you, gives you more than enough confidence to talk to a stranger. Speaking of which, it seems like we need to go in and support our friends.” Q said, noticing a commotion at the gate.
When the two got there it seemed that there was a group of players arguing at the gate. Lily was standing to the side, not knowing what to do while Brie was hiding behind her because of the men shouting at each other.
“You guys again!? Stop getting in our way!” A guy who seemed to be the leader of the party on the left said. His party consisted of 5 people (including himself), and from what Q could tell it looked fairly balanced with him and another girl being sword users. A female archer and magician made up their back line, and a male priest was in the middle to support. She checked the other party who didn’t look organized at all, but had at least double the amount of people. The leader from that party walked out and grinned. His face was rough-looking and he wore a dark cloak that covered his body, preventing Q from seeing anymore.
“Heh, no can do pal. I’m here to collect my debt from the other day.” He said while sneering.
“What debt? You challenged us to a duel and we beat you fair and square. Now you bring twice as many people to fight us again?”
“Hah. You beat us fair and square all right, but this time, it’s our turn to beat you!” The leader from the right cracked his knuckles as the rest of his party brought out their weapons.
“Okay, stop right there.” Q suddenly walked out into the middle of the two parties, interrupting their fight. “I don’t really care what conflict you guys have with each other, but I’m trying to complete a quest here so if you could all just move along that’d be great.” For a moment, both parties were completely silent until the archer from the left party said, “IT’S A LOLI!!!”
“The legends were true...”
“She’s so cute!”
The girls from the left party began to surround Q, fawning over her. “Hey, w- what are you girls doing?” She asked nervously. The girls gazes on Q were intense, directly conveying their intention to caress Q as much as possible. The males in the party weren’t sure what to make of this situation, but they stayed back anyway, not wanting to get caught up in the girl’s ‘cuddle session’.
“Ah~… stop touching my ears! Hey, back away from the tail! That’s mine!” Q tried to shake off the girls, but they were far too coordinated and trapped Q in their embrace. The serious atmosphere from earlier was completely blown away as Q was subjected to ‘cuddle hell’. Is this what the rabbits feel like when I hug them? She wondered as she tried to resist the girls.
“Hey! You uh… uhh… Ah forget it.” Apparently the rough-looking man felt left out and tried to get their attention, but was completely ignored. He looked at his party, shrugged, then left through the gates. While leaving he said, “We’ll let you off the hook this time, but next time we meet be prepared for a beat down!” Nobody was paying attention to him though, making him walk out of the town depressed. The rest of his party followed with confused expressions as they left the scene.
Now that most of the males were gone, Brie stopped hiding and stepped forward to help Q. “Unhand my friend immediately! If you do not, there will be conseq- AAH!!!” Unfortunately she was grabbed by the archer and was also subjected to ‘cuddle hell’.
“There was another cutie hiding there! Ahh, your round ears are so cute!”
“They feel so soft~.”
“She’s also adorable!”
“Help us~...” Q reached out a hand and looked to Kukis for help, but Kukis simply shook her head, not willing to get involved in this matter. While that was happening, Lily greeted the two male members of the party, who responded absentmindedly. In the end, it took almost half an hour until the girls were satisfied and released Q and Brie…
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A/N: Well well, another group of eccentrics. When will I ever write normal people into the story? Answer: NEVER. Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter, as I found that writing Q's shenanigans were quite entertaining.
Now, I have come to understand that you guys noticed this story doesn't have a direct 'plot'. That was on purpose... On purpose in the sense that I had no idea on what to do for plot XD. Right now the way the story is going, it's a pattern of, introduce new things, gain new skills, meet new people, then participate in a large event. There was never an end-goal to this story when I was writing it (though I'll probably think of one in the future).
That being said though, the one thing I want to convey from my story is that people are having fun. Meeting new people, going to new places, taking down challenging enemies, etc. All kinds of fun is to be had, especially in a video game. I sure hope you guys are having fun reading this story as well :)
Now... I found an image that basically looks like how I imagined Q to look like, so I'll share it with you guys. Just change the eyes to gold and hair to red.
Spoiler :
http%3a%2f%2fi.imgur.com%2f5INvLuQ.jpg%3f1 [http://i.imgur.com/5INvLuQ.jpg?1]
Fun-fact: The site I visit the most while writing a chapter is thesaurus.com (Gotta get that variety)
P.S: Almost 1000 views and 140 followers! (As of when I'm typing this) I love you guys. No homo.