The Black Swordsman

Chapter 10: Yuki Pt. 2

5 Days into SAO Incident:

Asuna, easily, cut through a wolf enemy and wiped out the entire health bar of the creature with a single slash. Another wolf tried to attack her from behind but she ducked, to avoid the blow and Yuki cut the enemy down while it was still in mid-air with a powerful strike of her own. The wolf's blood splattered on the ground of the cave that they were in and the wolf shattered into tiny blue polygonal shards. Asuna checked her surroundings to make sure that all of the enemies were cleared out, before speaking to her partner.

"I...think all of the enemies are gone", Asuna concluded.

She turned to face Yuki, who was facing the ground of the cave, looking more fatigued than usual.

"What's wrong? Those enemies should have been pretty easy for you, right? They're just wolves."

"Yeah, I just have been feeling a little strange today", Yuki answered, lifting up her head, pretending like she was fine. "On another note, your speed has improved so much. Did you see how fast you took down that one wolf? That was the same type of wolf that was able to almost wipe out your entire health bar not too long ago. If you've gotten this good in just a couple of days, then I can only imagine how good you'll get by the time this game is cleared."

"I have a good teacher and partner", Asuna complimented, causing her friend to smile. "How are you on potions?"

Yuki opened up her menu to check how many potions she had left.

"Hm, I only have two potions left for today. I left the rest of my potions in a storage container inside of the room I'm renting. I don't like taking too many with me at one time, since they can take up a lot of storage capacity if they stack up. We've been at this dungeon for a while. Did you want to head back or keep going?"

Asuna thought for a moment and recalled that she, herself, had no potions left in her inventory. Asuna pulled up her main menu with the swipe of her right hand to check the time.

It is getting pretty late. Heading back might be a good idea. We'll keep advancing in the dungeon, tomorrow.

"I say we just call it for the night", Asuna responded. "I think we've farmed enough experience for one day. Plus, I have noticed I've been fighting better ever since I've started getting better sleep. It's strange how getting good sleep in this world affects how well you perform...just like the real world."

"In that case, did you want to see the room I'm renting?" asked Yuki, invitingly. "It isn't much but there's an extra bed in it that never gets used. I had to rent a two-bed room because all of the singles were already taken. Come on, it'll be fun. Kind of like a sleep over."

Sleep over, huh? Asuna thought to herself.

She had heard a lot of kids at her school talk about sleeping at each other's houses but didn't have any personal experience with it. Even if Asuna did have friends in the real world, she could never see her mother allowing anyone else to stay at her house for a night. She knew that her mother would view that as nothing but a distraction. But her mother wasn't inside of Aincrad.

"Sure, that kind of sounds fun. Lead the way, Yuki."

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"It shouldn't be too much farther", commented Yuki, after closing the map tab of her main menu with the swipe of her hand. "Did you want to get something to eat before we head to my place? There's this one place that has really good deserts in the town that the inn is in."